It's my birthday. I'm 58. Please see above.
Not really, I want nothing but light and love for all of you who read this. Everyone else can take their chances.
In Italian crime thriller Killer Versus Killers (1985), hard-bitten hired assassin Henry Silva's weapon of choice is a rocket propelled grenade launcher. No hastily substituted mannequin is safe, no matter how nattily dressed.
From Planet Of The Female Invaders (1966), a Mexican film in which stunningly beautiful space women come to Earth to kidnap some fat, jug-eared blokes in order to further the plan to quit their own planet, which is bathed in burning daylight all the time. None of it makes much sense, but it's hugely entertaining, which is very much a win, or la victoria, as they say en Espanol.
A couple of collages from the archive, originally created for the front and back cover of an album I made called 'ASMR' which I ultimately realised was just a load of formless noise and so was abandoned before anyone else could hear it and come to the same conclusion.
Poemfield No. 5. d. Stan VanDerBeek (1968)
One of a series of nine films made by VanDerBeek during a residency at Bell Labs, Poemfield No.5 (also known as 'Free Fall') combines footage of skydivers and computer code by Ken Knowlton to demonstrate the possibilities of computer animation. It was made with with a state of the art resolution of 252 x 184 pixels - with 4k now becoming the standard, and with up to 24k available, this makes the Poemfield series look like the digital equivalent of cave paintings: crude but miraculous.
'How To Make Flying Things', by Michael Bond (Studio Vista, 1975)
It is estimated that around 70% of all UFO sightings can be attributed to use /misuse of this book. Was the author inadvertently irresponsible or being deliberately subversive? Either way, you'd expect more from the bloke who came up with Paddington.
It's the 24th December, 1979 and Tom Woods has a job in the engine room of a merchant ship. After a brief layover in Tahiti, he is about to embark on a 24 day 4,200 mile trip to the Panama Canal. He takes the time to send a Happy Xmas card to his Mum in Plymouth, although it will not arrive until well into the New Year, hopefully bringing joy and a small amount of tropical cheer into what was undoubtedly a cold and miserable January back in the UK.
