Friday 26 March 2010

Inside Out... (A Poem By Outa_Spaceman Being: 52)



Although I'm not convinced of it
I'm sure that I can hear the sound
Of someone buried underground
Whose broken nails
Are scratching on the lid

Maybe it's just only me
Maybe my imagination
But someone in the room above
Is singing a weird tune
To an accordion

I wish that I could make myself
Investigate the tapping noise
That I am sure is coming from
A cupboard I've not opened
For a thousand years

All these things begin to fit
Into a pattern only I can see
That all connects then spirals back on me
And the small world I exist in

I think
I might
Go outside

If anything outside is worse
It's dark and cold
And smells like something dead
That really should be burnt
Then scattered to the winds
To find it's fortune

It's hard for me to understand
The flashing lights and random words
Attached to every building in the street
That babble on at me
Even though I am invisible

This really was a big mistake
I'm frightened and start hallucinating
I see demons on each corner
And animals that I know don't exist
Because Noah wouldn't let them on the ark

It's difficult to know right now
If I would rather kneel in heaven
Or lie asleep in hell
Dreaming In a velvet realm

Silently

And blind.


(Y'just can't get acid like that nowadays...)

Breath....

In an attempt to stop myself writing any more songs for the album I've returned to messing about with animation....
The purpose of this short movie is to demonstrate fading an object in and out...

The pictures I used, a still from Eraserhead and one of my constructions, were aged using a facility on a Japanese site I can't seem to link to...

Thursday 25 March 2010

Sundry Mortifications No. 14: Obsessively Building Raised Bed Planters...


Addiction is an alarming over-used word in my opinion...
I'm not a raised bed planter building addict...
Just last week I went for two whole days without so much of a sniff of the materials need to build raised bed planters and I chose to spend those 48 hellish nightmare hours in my shed weeping, sweating and shaking for totally unrelated personal reasons...
So what if I've taken to eating my Haribo Starmix spangled breakfast (lunch and dinner) out of them...?
I can stop anytime I want...

What Has Been Seen Cannot Be Unseen No. 2...

What happened to me after I'd, inadvertently, watched a music video by someone called Lady Ga Ga...

Good Grief...!

Update:

As my daughter was growing up I told her that if she didn't work hard at school she might end up having to dance about in just her pants for a living...
That now sounds like lousy career advice...

Wednesday 24 March 2010

Work In Progress: A Collection of Musical Novelties....

After four weeks of hard graft in the late watches of the night and the early watches of the morning I've finally completed all the writing and recording for my forth-coming album:

Now the trick is to sit back and leave it alone for a week or so before starting the final mix-down....
The current track list (final running order TBC) is as follows:

Dan, Dan, Darr.
R.U. Receiving Me?
The Lamentation of the Dancer On A Rope.
I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles.
The Song of the Evil Twin.
Oh, Balloon.
Excerpt From 'A Complicated Diagram'.
In The Smoke.
Daisy Bell (for HAL 9000)
The Lamentation of the Lost Prophet.
The Stars In Your Eyes.
Now & Then.

I'm now going to sleep for a week...

Tuesday 23 March 2010

Linda, Digging....

Linda, not covered in animal excrement and decaying vegetable matter yet, leveling the contents of the new planter:

I love work...
I could watch it for hours...
(all I have to do is select the loop function...)

Sunday 21 March 2010

Bargin Bin Find....


A rare find indeed...

Saturday 20 March 2010

Collaboration...

An Owell/O.S.M. collaboration entitled:

'The Magnificent 7 David Byrnes (out of Talking Heads...)'

Art...!

I like going to art galleries...
My mate Rog, he's exhibited at the Royal Academy y'know, wanted to visit the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester (about 6 miles away from where I live....) and I've been wanting to visit every since it opened...

Traipsing around after Rog is handy, it means I can ask lots of stupid questions about what I see without feeling as foolish as I do when I have to ask gallery staff...
My favourite works are, generally, sketches. I like to see the what lies underneath...
I spent several minutes closely examining a sketch (Rog did say that is was by one of the best draftsmen in the world but I've forgotten the name...) when I began to see how elegantly simple the lines were and suddenly found myself captivated by the drawing...
It was only when I noticed one of the young female staff staring at me, that I realised I'd been gawping at a the bottom of a rather large lady...
We pressed on...
Here, in no particular order and what was available as post-cards in the gift shop, are the pieces I liked:
Four Boats by a Lighthouse. Gouache on Wood. Alfred Wallis 1855-1942
Heron Watching. Collage. Mark Hearld.
Harbour, from the 'Schools Prints'. Lithograph on paper. Julian Trevelyan 1910-1988
Messenger. Oil, tempera, sand and pencil on gesso-prepared board, with incised lines.
John Tunnard 1900-1971
Reguarding Guardians II. Painted Bronze. Dhruva Mistry. 1957-

Whenever I come away from an art gallery I always find I have one image stuck forever in my mind...
This time it was 'Crumpled' by Paula Rego:

If I wanted to see the same quality of work that's on show at Pallant House I'd have to travel to London so I'm very lucky to have this place so close at hand...

Friday 19 March 2010

Manly Pursuits No. 7: Building A Raised Bed Planter....

It's that weird phony period in the garden when I know things are going to start happening very soon so I'd better start making preparations...
Linda keeps rescuing plants from the compost heap at the nursery where she works and brings them home to revive them and we're running out of space to plant them in...
I 'liberated' some wood from a house demolition and imagined a vague design to put in this space:

After much measuring, sawing, swearing and hammering I ended up with this two tier planter:

Now all that remains to be done is for the contents of our compost bin, several bags of donkey manure and some top soil to be added (Linda's department..) and it can be planted up (also Linda's department...)
The view from my shed (Linda up to her eyeballs in animal excrement and decaying vegetable matter...) just gets better all the time...

Monday 15 March 2010

Fail....


My childhood diet of worms never did me any harm...
Kids are just soft nowadays...

Manly Pursuits No. 6: Standing In A Freezing Cold Pond While Linda Takes Pictures And Laughs...


The only aspect of my misfortune that upsets me is that when Linda fell in the pond earlier I was to much of a gentleman to take pictures of her (I did laugh quite a lot though...)

When We Left Eden (A Poem By Outa_Spaceman Being: 52...)


When we left Eden,

We left behind:
The swing on the sycamore branch,
The overgrown greenhouse,
Rusted iron gates,
The box hedges,
Yesterday's bleak prospect,
The smell of surgical spirit,
The glass marbles under the rusty wheel barrow
A dead crow hung in a tree,
A key on a nail,
An abandoned well,
An abandoned wendy house,
Shadows across the path,
The broken filter bed,
The lost faith,
The pet's graveyard,
The hum of the electrical substation,
The cupboard under the stairs,
The coal house,
The pump house,
A Halo of flies,
A concrete yard,
Imaginary friends,
And the quite peace of summer...

It's not about how you hang on.

It's about how you let go....

Sunday 14 March 2010

Wonderful World (a clear-out of my animation experiments...)

All of the clips in this movie are steps on the road to what's to come...

Turbot Wellington suggested I move away from my animation process, involving a basic photo editor and QuickTime Pro, and try something more sophisticated....
Which I'm down-loading now...

Cardboard Signs...

A new assault weapon in my war to liberate the human race from the consensual hallucination 'reality':

All of these signs have been strategically placed in my local area...
It's only a matter of time before the balloon goes up...

What He Did... (A Poem By Outa_Spaceman Being: 52)

From The City Folk Club

He stumped along the fetid towpath.
Carrying bits of broken bird bath.
He limped across a rickety bridge.
He mumbled verse on a wind blown ridge.
He saw a light and made a sign.
He tried to unravel a ball of twine.
He shuffled his feet by a moribund stream.
Birds on the wing were singing his theme.
His golden transport had been delayed.
All of his pointless flags were frayed.
He didn't know which way was up.
He got his lip stuck to a cup.
A wicked orphan set fire to his shirt.
He rolled around flailing in the dirt.
When all this happened non could say.
Perfidious winds blew the traces away.
Yet nailed up high across the lintel.
For all to see, that is until.
The clanging bells of Armageddon.
Rattle it loose four horsemen to tread on.
These simple words of execration.
I am the agent of my own damnation...

Saturday 13 March 2010

Sundry Mortifications No. 13: The Happy World of Haribo...


Addiction is an alarming over-used word in my opinion...
I'm not a Haribo Starmix addict...
Just last week I went for two whole days without so much of a sniff of delicious jellied confection and I chose to spend those 48 hellish nightmare hours in my shed weeping, sweating and shaking for totally unrelated personal reasons...
So what if I've taken to sprinkling them on my breakfast (lunch and dinner)
I can stop anytime I want...

Friday 12 March 2010

The Art Of Miss. Ned Ouwell...

Lind ....
errrr, sorry,
Miss. Ned Ouwell is very self-effacing about her artistic ability and dismisses my praise of it, going as far as to suggest that I need my head examined...

N.B. Ned can 'do fingers,' surely the mark of a true artist..?

Sunday 7 March 2010

Manly Pursuits No. 5: Sitting In A Shed, Suppin' A Brew...


A spaceman in his natural habitat, at peace with himself...

Saturday 6 March 2010

Daft...


More honing of the animations...

Friday 5 March 2010

Manly Pursuits No. 4: Burning The Evidence...


Now let's see them try to make that grave robbing charge stick...

Thursday 4 March 2010

A Quick Bit Of Hooting Yard Fan Art...


'nough said...

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Animation Test Transmission....

I'm trying to improve the look of my animations...
This is a test of the things I've found out so far:


I'm happy with that...

To see more of the Difference Engine and it's little brother, without my framework surrounding them, why not visit Tim Robinson's site here:
Tim Robinson's Meccano Computing Machinery

Tuesday 2 March 2010

Oh No..! It's Happening Again...

Welcome to Bognor Regis...
One of the brittle bones of the skeleton coast...

I find visiting Bognor town-center distressing enough at the best of times but when I start seeing the disembodied heads of clowns in the sky I am over-whelmed by true terror...

This can only mean one thing...
Bognor Regis is hosting the Clown Convention again...
(or I'm having some kind of flash-back..)
To be fair, the clowns are usually safely secured behind the fence, where they belong, at Butlins Holiday Camp, but this coming Sunday (7th) they intend 'parading' through the town...
For pity's sake won't somebody think of the children...?

On a lighter note...

We have frogspawn in our garden pond...

In The Smoke.....

Linda is now officially worried about me...


Taken from the forth-coming album:


(I've got to stop watching Quay Brothers films. I'm starting to feel infected...)

Monday 1 March 2010

A Brief Interlude....


Hang on...
What just happened...?