Tetherd Cow Ahead

Well it’s not often that you get the scoop over boing-boing, so I have to gloat that we were well ahead of the wave here on The Cow:

This article from this morning about a guy who’s just discovered that FAEs can be used for underground pest control.

Yawn. So Last Century…

The Cow is one year old today! Who’da thought I’d ever have enough things to say to keep it going this long? Yeah yeah, hands down at the back. I never said important things to say. If I had important things to say I’d be working on my Pulitzer.

Well, it appears to be de rigeur on media anniversaries to revisit the year that has past, so I thought I’d put up some of my favourite posts for nostalgia’s sake. There’s no rhyme nor reason among them, just a selection of things that took my fancy. Sometimes it’s more for the commentary by you guys than the post itself. So I thank you for your wit, your wisdom (although lord knows there’s precious little of that) and especially for making me laugh.

Salut!

♥Bored Housewives: in which a small tragedy is revealed.

♥Schrodinger’s Curry: in which quantum physics does something mysterious and inscrutable. As usual.

♥Half a Bladder: in which a curious phone message is received.

♥That Which We Call a Rose…: in which Little Noodle sums it all up in one line, and Joey Polanski made me laugh more than I can say.

♥Invisible Ink: in which I amuse myself and confuse everyone else.

♥Flying Pig Shit: in which Internet wisdom is examined and found wanting (surprise!).

♥Physical Attraction: in which we take a look at Schrodinger’s Pussy.

♥River Deep Mountain High: in which vodka and rancid yoghurt drinks are discussed.

♥The Metropolis: in which a few people are taken in by my jolly jape.

♥This Is Not a Hoax: in which the commentary actually had real-life consequences ( Pil & William, I promise you’ll love every moment…)

♥Call Me Reverend: in which I fulfill a life-long ambition.

Well, I won’t go any more recent than that. I’m sure you either remember back to at least November, or if you don’t, have good reasons for wanting to forget.

Onward into 2006!

Thanks in absentia to Imaginative Icing from whom I stole the image.

The Continuing Misfortunes of Simple Graphics Man ~

#10: The Precipitous Precipice.

Simple Graphics Man goes for a clifftop walk, but the fresh sea air goes to his head and he strays a mite too close to the edge…

Thanks Pete for the pic.

I am having my morning coffee in my favourite cafe, doing the Cryptic Crossword, as is my wont. A guy comes in and sits at a table near me. He orders a coffee, takes out his pen and opens at the puzzle pages. I watch to see if he is doing the Cryptic or the Quick. He fills in a clue on the Cryptic. He glances up and sees that I am on the Cryptic. We exchange looks. Right On Word Friend! Who would bother with the Quick?

Another guy comes in and sits down at the table under the window. He orders a coffee, takes out his pen and opens the paper. Crossword Guy and I watch… Cryptic or Quick? He turns to the puzzles… he puts his pen to the paper and starts on the… Sudoku…

Crossword Guy and I just look at one another and shake our heads.

This is a leaf from a small plant in a pot in my backyard. It’s a tree. An apple tree in fact, and not just any apple tree. It’s an identical copy of perhaps the most famous apple tree in the history of humankind (I exclude mythical apple trees).

Let me tell you its story.

My friend Rod is a cider maker. In Australia it’s pretty hard to make good cider unless you grow your own apples, because cider is not just made from your average garden-variety apple tree. As a consequence, Rod has become fairly knowedgeable about apple trees, and especially interested in apple trees that might have a little bit of heritage.

Some years ago, Rod’s partner Michelle was in Parkes, in western NSW, on holiday with their children. Parkes is the home of one of Australia’s most famous scientific landmarks, the Parkes Radio Telescope,* which was a stop on their itinerary. While they were there, Michelle noticed an old apple tree in the grounds. A small plaque on the neglected tree told visitors that it was a descendant of the tree under which Isaac Newton sat while formulating his hypotheses on the nature of the force of gravity. Rod travelled to Parkes and asked the management at the telescope if he might take some cuttings. It worked out well – the old tree got a much-needed prune, and Rod got a number of cuttings, or scions.

Rod tells me that his research has uncovered the information that the variety of the tree is called ‘Flower of Kent’ and the original tree was growing in Newton’s mother’s garden at Woolsthorpe Manor, near Grantham in Lincolnshire. Newton had gone there to escape the plague which was rife in London at the time, and stayed there from 1665-1666 while he was consolidating his ideas on gravitation.

Apple trees are usually propagated clonally, that is, cuttings from one tree are grafted onto a sturdy rootstock to grow into maturity. This means that the descendants of the Newton tree are genetically identical to their parent tree. Clones of the Newton tree have been circulated to various scientific institutions across the globe. Parkes Radio Telescope was one of the destinations to which a Newton apple made its way. Rod made several new clones from the parent, one of which went back to the telescope grounds to be re-established in a suitable place at the visitor centre.

Rod also very kindly gave me one of the new little trees. I am not really sure he knew exactly how much it meant to me, but it is one of the most wonderful gifts I have ever received. I really wish I had a garden in which I could plant it. My tiny inner city house has nowhere at all for me to put it as it starts to grow. I’m now on the lookout for its new home. My intention is to plant it this winter with the ashes of my beloved Kate. I know she would like that.

*The Parkes Radio Telescope played an important part in the Apollo 11 moon landing.

My lucky-dip present from my mate Pete at our writing group’s annual Christmas meeting was this ‘Super High’ set of sunglasses. The packaging promises ‘Super Amusive Play’ and warns ‘This Is a Toy!’ (just in case you get so Super High that you are tempted to wear them to your next United Nations press briefing).

But the best part is the contents description:

It says at the bottom: ‘Specifications colours and contents may vary from illustration.’

Fantastic! They could stick anything in this bag and not get sued.

But I know that the thing you all really want to see is how cool I look wearing them. Oh very well.

Ten Creepy Films You Should See:

★Jack Clayton’s The Innocents

★Tod Browning’s Freaks

★Tod Browning’s Dracula

★F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu

★Robert Altman’s Images

★James Whale’s The Old Dark House

★Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now

★Dario Argento’s Suspiria

★Roman Polanski’s The Tenant

★Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby

In no particular order, but definitely in a darkened room.

In Tod Browning’s Dracula, there’s a great scene where Jonathan Harker arrives at Dracula’s castle and The Count bids Harker follow him up the stairs to his rooms. Bela Lugosi, in his inimitable role, walks up the stone stairway, across which is spun a huge spiderweb. He passes through the cobweb without even disturbing so much as a thread. Harker looks on dumbfounded and is forced to push away the thick webs so that he can follow. A spider scuttles away into the darkness.

It’s an amazingly creepy moment, and few cinema special effects have ever surpassed it for me. How is the Count’s unnerving act achieved? Simply with an edit: Dracula approaches the web, cut to Harker’s reaction, cut to Dracula on the other side of the web. Just like that.

You can pick up the Browning Dracula on DVD for a few dollars. It’s worth it. Sure, the script is lumbering and melodramatic by today’s standards, but I guarantee, if you sit in a darkened room with no distractions and immerse yourself in the black and white world of Browning’s interpretation, you can’t fail to be enveloped by the dark, dank atmosphere and the claustrophobic story.

If that scene was being made today, it would go very differently. Dracula would beckon Harker, and turn with a swirl of his cape into a tight close-up. Harker would not see The Count’s face morph for an instant into the visage of some hideous fanged-demon. Dracula would approach the cobweb, which would unwind strand by strand around his dark form. He would pass through the untwining web which a digital spider would then re-spin behind him. The sequence would have fifteen different CGI shots, thirty or forty cuts and a whole swag of obvious over-the-top sound effects. It would be impressive, possibly, but it would not be in the least bit creepy.

The modern cinema of the fantastic has lost its imagination. It has also lost its respect for the ability of the audience to have an imagination. In the Browning Dracula the spookiest moment of Dracula passing through the spiderweb happens way off screen, deep in the imagination of the viewer. No amount of clever CGI can ever hope to compete with that.

It’s time for ideas again. We’re all tired of seeing intricately detailed dinosaurs, gravity-defying superheroes and toothy aliens that look like they have bad head colds. We’ve seen it. It’s boring.

How about this for an idea Hollywood? Take away a third of the budget you spend on special effects and put it into creating some decent original stories. And for Pete’s sake, take some risks for a change.

Last week, a couple of friends and myself watched a DVD made by The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society: an interpretation of one of Lovecraft’s ‘Cthulhu Mythos’ stories, The Call of Cthulhu.

The HPLHS* is basically a group of dedicated fans, who have, through an effort of sheer will and hard work (and not a little inspiration) done something which mainstream cinema has comprehensively failed to do – they have brought the peculiar storycraft and ambience of Lovecraft successfully to the screen.†

I have to say that I wasn’t expecting too much. I didn’t even know they were doing a film, and, well, let’s be honest – films that come out of fandom are rarely things you want to watch, let alone tell anyone you watched. But the fact is, these guys really pulled it off. And the main reason they pulled it off should be highly instructive for a lot of the people who make up the lumbering bloated juggernaut that is Hollywood.

That reason can be summed up in one succinct thought: they were clever. Instead of even attempting to compete with the high gloss, surround sound and expensive visual effects of mainstream movies, the HPLHS have elected to depict Lovecraft’s tale in the manner of the time in which it is set. The Call of Cthulhu is made as a silent movie.

It is a stroke of genius, and this simple, deft piece of insight has at once liberated the film-makers and illuminated the very essence of Lovecraft’s odd and unsettling writing.

It is easy to draw a direct line from The Call of Cthulhu to films such as Murnau’s Nosferatu, Wegener’s Vampyr and even Tod Browning’s Dracula, which is of course not a silent, but draws heavily from that tradition. The HPLHS film-makers have avoided the major pitfall of re-creating a silent film by taking the whole process very seriously and not camping it up (quite unlike the poorly executed Nicolas Cage-produced John Malkovitch vehicle Shadow of the Vampire ‡).

I don’t really want to make this post a review of the film. There are plenty of reviews already on the HPLHS site and elsewhere. I did like it, and if you are a Lovecraft aficionado I really recommend you buy the DVD, because it will be a valuable part of your collection.

What I really want to talk about though is why this inexpensive amateur film succeeds so well where mega-dollar Hollywood blockbusters fail. And that deserves a Part 2.

*Warning: highly geeky, obsessive and possibly sanity-sucking site.

‡ Which failed to realize that when Murnau created Nosferatu it was one of the scariest things to hit the Silver Screen; Murnau was not directing his actors in some kind of camp romp, as the SOV writer and director obviously saw it.

When I’m not working, one of the things I really like to do is to get the morning paper, walk up to my favourite cafe in Newtown, have a coffee and some breakfast and do the Cryptic Crossword. It’s the one island of stability in The Troubled Sea of Life. I can’t begin to tell you how much I enjoy this great little place, which has been consistently good for three or four years.

So, anyway, today I am talking to one of the baristas, making flippant conversation as you do, when he says the words that chill the warm summer air by a good dozen degrees C:

“This is my last day. The new owners are taking over next week.”

Sombre descending chord progression. Clouds pass in front of the sun.