Ephemera


Magpie & Lawnmower

I did end up mowing the lawn yesterday (well, you have to fill in your time somehow until the world ends…) About halfway through, in the midst of the hideous racket that is the sound of a petrol-driven set of rotating blades shearing through vegetation, a magpie turned up and settled down on the clothesline, apparently oblivious to all the noise. I was amazed that it didn’t seem at all fearful of what I would have assumed was a pretty confronting spectacle for a bird.

But birds are smart.* This little guy† has evidently learned that the sound of a lawnmower means the opportunity for an easy meal. Sure enough, after I’d finished, he hopped down off his perch and helped himself to the bugs and snails that had been disturbed by the mowing.

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*Some people don’t think so. We can only assume it’s because they feel their intelligence is threatened by superior bird brains.

†Or gal. Bit hard to tell with magpies.

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Bill Impro

You’ll remember that a couple of weeks back I retrieved my beautiful Big Briar Model 91C Theremin from storage for an unspecified outing… well I can reveal now that the producers of the Andrew Denton show Enough Rope had tracked me down and asked if they could borrow it for their interview with British comedian (and all-round genius) Bill Bailey, which went to air last night. They sprung the theremin on Bill unannounced, but he made a good fist of playing it (and believe me, that’s no small accomplishment). It’s not too surprising – he does use one in his stage show, albeit as a bit of a gimmick. Go here to see Bill Bailey showing the world how Zippity Doo Dah would turn out if rendered by Portishead.

Aside from all that, Bill is a bit of an authority on the history of the theremin as well, and has written about it for The Guardian.

You can see a snippet of the Enough Rope interview (unfortunately not the bit where he plays the theremin) here. And for some of Bill in the unmatchable Black Books alongside Dylan Moran, try this.

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Thanks to hewhohears for grabbing the above still frame from the show for me!

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Thomas Feiner & Anywhen. Just because I think this is a beautiful song & video:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/WQa6GSIjht4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Stillborn...?

OK, as we’re on the subject of the Uncanny Valley, let’s drift over to the phenomenon of Reborn Baby Dolls. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look here. This is a Reborn Baby Doll web ring. Kick back. Spend a few minutes browsing around. And be prepared to be really creeped out.

This is a huge community of people who are devoted to making, buying and selling minutely detailed facsimiles of babies. I’m not a biological parent, so I may not be the best one to judge, but these ‘dolls’ really give me the willies. They don’t say ‘cute lifelike baby’ to me – they say ‘DEAD baby’. I suppose the makers might argue that they are sleeping babies, but I would counter that they never wake up and are therefore back in the category of DEAD. Especially the ones with their eyes open.

If you had one of these things in your house, then I can guarantee that there’s one sound you’d never want to hear and that’s the pitter-patter of tiny feet.

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(Seriously – mothers who are reading – do you find this concept cute or weird? I’m really interested.)

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Whilst browsing the Rogues Gallery recently, I learned of a newly available product that I know is going to greatly interest all Cow readers: Roland-Deese Productions’ Ghost In A Bottle.

Ghost in a Bottle

Yes, Cowpokes, for forking out a mere $US20.00 you too can have a bottle containing a ‘ghost’ ‘captured from a reported haunted establishment, (house, hotel, ship, cemetery, etc), by our Ghost Hunters’.

“But Reverend,” I hear you cry, “There are so many crooks, thieves and swindlers out in the wide world! How can I be sure that I’m getting a real ghost in my bottle?! What’s to stop Roland-Deese Productions from selling me some cheap empty bottle and merely saying there’s a ghost in it?”

Well, Cowmrades, you can be sure you’re getting the Real Deal because along with your bottle-imprisoned-ghost you get a ‘Ghost Certificate’ which is signed by the Ghost Hunter that has ‘captured’ the ghost! In addition, the bottle (‘Sealed for Your Protection*: WE CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY MISFORTUNE TO BEFALL YOU SHOULD YOU TAKE POSSESSION OF THIS OBJECT’) comes with a List of Dire Warnings of Hideous Things that Might Happen if you open your bottle, like, oh, ‘your car keys might go missing…’ or ‘you might smell an unfamiliar cologne or perfume…’. Roland-Deese Productions would surely not just make things like that up!

Indeed, as Murray, of Apple Valley, California says in the testimonials:

Just like your instructions advised, I beleive I have seen all signs of my ghost. I’m thinking of moving out of my apartment, it’s now haunted. The Ghost Bottle is a very entertaining novelty!

It would appear that Murray’s ghost isn’t so much haunting him out of his apartment, as entertaining him out! One can only speculate as to whose spirit he got.

Not only might something from the long list of Warnings happen to you, should you open your Ghost Bottle, but Roland-Deese further advises that ‘You may experience other Ghostly situations not stated above.’ I guess that would cover:

• Hideous face deformation and body contortions
• Having your soul sucked out through your mouth
• Attacks by swarms of flies
• The desire to throw yourself out a thirteenth floor window
• Getting sucked into the TV

…and all the other things that ghosts really† do that the purveyors of the Ghost Bottles are not keen to detail in their list, for some reason. Of course, Roland-Deese Productions Ghost Hunters are professionals and therefore in no danger themselves when they bottle their wraiths:

There is a special technology that takes place when our Ghost Hunting professionals capture the Ghosts.

That special technology is of course called Bullshit™ and is used extensively throughout the world of ‘psychic’ commerce.

All that being said, faithful Acowlytes, it will probably come as no surprise to you that agents‡ for TCA Enterprises, ever on the lookout for a new marketing opportunity, have come up with an even better idea than a Ghost in Bottle: a Ghost SHIP in a Bottle!

Fantom Frigate in a Flagon
(Sorry folks. No matter how hard I try, I simply can’t present you with artwork as terrible as the Ghost in a Bottle site)

Yes, that’s right! Selected readers of Tetherd Cow Ahead are eligible†† for their very own highly collectible Fantom Frigate in a Flagon! Using genuine naval ectoplasm,‡‡ TCA artisans have lovingly crafted exact replicas of your favourite mystery ships, including the Andrea Doria, the Octavius, the Flying Dutchman and the Mary Celeste, had them cursed by Certified African Witchdoctors** and then stuck in a jar. Of course, that’s exactly where you should leave them, because, should you open your Fantom Frigate Flagon, you may experience:

• Flooded drains
• Shortages of rum in the liquor cabinet
• ‘Mysterious’ parrot droppings around the house
• Unexplained attacks of scurvy
• Voices singing sea-shanties in another room
• Huge splintered wooden holes in your walls
• ‘Salty’ tasting coffee
• Other things not stated above that might be associated with ghost ships, or the sea, or pirates, or water, or films about ghost ships, or salt beef, or smuggling, or gold doubloons, or films about water, or wooden legs, or Moby Dick, or the moon on a cloudy night. Etc.

And remember, when you get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and a water-logged, rag-draped skeleton leaps out of your bathtub and lunges at you with a rusty sabre – make sure you have a good ol’ chuckle. After all, it’s just entertainment…

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*The bottle is sealed with wax, for Pete’s sake. What kind of third-rate spook is going to let a little glob of red wax get in the way of eating your brains?

†They don’t really do those things. Ghosts don’t exist. In case you were, like, taking me seriously or anything.

‡I shamelessly stole this idea from Jim Shaver over at Rogues Gallery, Thanks Jim!

††Bribes Conditions apply.

‡‡Spiritualism joke.

**From Nigeria. It wasn’t at all difficult to find experts there in the ‘special technology’ that Roland-Deese uses.

★A special thanks to Ralph Elzholz at Virtual Room for the Schooner model.

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In Comments on the previous post about Julian Doyles forthcoming ‘Chemical Wedding’, JR made a remark that reminded me of a film that I saw quite some years ago – a cinematic treasure that I feel is my duty to introduce to all my devoted Acowlytes. Running with the tagline A Corpse is Bait in the Trap of Terror!, Michael Findlay’s Shriek of the Mutilated (1974) is a work that makes Plan 9 From Outer Space (a film widely held to be ‘the worst of all time’) look like Citizen Kane. Sure, there are many, many bad films – miles of wasted celluloid that is boring and incompetent and just plain unwatchable – but films like ‘Shriek’ fall into a very special category: Cinema that is so bad that it is entertaining.

I first saw SOTM sometime in the mid ’80s on late night tv, after I’d come home (relatively) early from a dull party and warmed up the tube to see what was on. A scene of a man attacking a woman with a broken gin bottle flickers into view, lots of slashing, lots of very fake-looking blood. Ho-hum. The man makes his way to the bathroom and fills up the tub, inexplicably climbing in fully clothed. Hmmm… I stay my hand from the off switch… Meanwhile, we find that the woman, lying ripped and bloodied on the kitchen floor is not dead. Slowly, painfully, she grabs the cord of the toaster, pulling it from the bench above and with her last remaining strength pushes it with agonizing effort down the corridor and into the bathroom, where she lobs it into the bath thereby electrocuting the man to death.

Awwright!!! I’m hooked! This couple has a toaster on a fifty-foot extension cord! With shameless disregard for the laws of reality like that at the fore, the film was plainly a work of genius! I fired the VHS into record (because my sixth sense told me I was watching a very rare event that might never repeat itself), rustled myself up some toasted cheese sandwiches and sat down for the most entertaining late-night movie fare of my life.

JR’s comment prompted me to see what I could find out about SOTM after all these years, and to my immense excitement I uncovered a YouTube vid of a trailer for the film. And, unlike most trailers of the modern era, it actually does capture a fairly true representation of the film you’re going to see, without giving away the best bits! So, without further ado, let’s crank up the Wurlitzer and give you a little taste of the kind of cinematic genius that they just don’t know how to deliver anymore (by the way, this is one of the very few film trailers where you can play ‘Spot the Armadillo’ – watch carefully, it’s cunningly disguised…):

“Sometimes… it almost sounds like… something human…”

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*Just one of countless memorable quotes from the film.

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