Carmina Burana and The X-Factor

The X-Factor occasionally uses a piece of classical music named Carmina Burana composed by Carl Orff. The lyrics are from a medieval poem Oh, Fortuna. However, some talented Smart Alec's on the Internet have created a game called misheard lyrics. Below I've embedded a video of some one's misheard lyrics of Carmina Burana. [This was brought to my attention by Tweets regarding Richard Wiseman playing the video at a comedy venue.]

Drag Me to Hell and the Lamia

This week, one of my birthday presents from my wife was the DVD of Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell. I have always liked Raimi’s films and so I enjoyed watching it. There were two good aspects to this film. One was that is was a modern reinterpretation of the basis of the plot of the classic 1950s film Night of the Demon (in itself based on a ghost story by M. R. James). The other was how the story was told and the dénouement. Of those things, I should not write of them here because it is unfair to anyone who has not seen the film yet.

My only criticism of the film is Raimi’s holding onto little visual touches that go back to his early films and may even be an injoke reference to them. There are only a few but their timing produces a comical rather than chilling effect. If they had not been included I would regard the film as a modern horror classic; as it is, those brief moments ruined the chilling, on edge, hairs tingling on the back of your neck type atmosphere that the plot works so carefully to create.

The evil in the film is a fictional one made up by Sam and Ivan Raimi; in giving it a name they chose the word Lamia, which is from ancient Greek mythology and bears no resemblance to what appears in the film.

The precise nature of the ancient Greek Lamia is somewhat fuzzy. Its incorporation into the literature of later civilizations involves them moulding its qualities to the ideas of their own time. A near modern example is John Keats’ poem Lamia, where the creature is hinted at being somewhat vampire like. Unfortunately, during the nineteenth century the vampire was becoming a popular image in literature and just about every mythological being that had very little information to suggest its nature was being pigeon-holed under the label of vampire.

In the myth, there was only one Lamia (rather than a generic species of vampire) – a beautiful mortal woman who was one of Zeus’ lovers. The story goes that Zeus’ wife, Hera, was prone to dishing out harsh punishments on her husband’s lovers and their children; in this case Hera would murder each child that Lamia bore. It eventually drove Lamia mad. She became insanely jealous of women who enjoyed motherhood and she began murdering and devouring their small children. Somehow, and mythology seldom goes into details, this activity changed Lamia into an immortal monster who preyed upon children. Later use of that story was to present Lamia as a bogey-woman, a means to scare naughty children with the threat of her coming to devour them if they did not behave.

[The above image is copyright by the film-makers]

Telephone Land Line Now Fixed!

Just to let all concerned know that my telephone land line has now been repaired. My apologies to anyone who was inconvenienced over the weekend.

Landline Problems

Our telephone land line is not working properly and our service provider states it could be next week before an engineer will be available to repair it. The delay is understandable, considering the amount of engineers that must be busy reparing the damage that the storms caused in the UK recently.

So if anyone has been trying to reach Jill or myself by our land line telephone number and not getting through, then please phone my mobile number instead.

3D Magic Spectacular on Television

Next Monday, the 16th of November, at 10pm, Channel 4 will be broadcasting Derren Brown Presents The 3D Magic Spectacular. One of the guests will be Pete Firman. To obtain the necessary 3D glasses, you will find that they are being given away free in Sainsburys. For more details, including on other 3D television programs next week, go to Channel 4. I am hoping that the program will be as spectacular as the title claims. If you cannot see the program on Monday then you have a second opportunity on Sunday the 22nd of November at 10pm.

[The above image is copyright by Channel 4.]

Bright Star

I took Jill to see the film Bright Star yesterday. I generally have concerns about biopics due to how sometimes writers feel the need to pointlessly beef up the plot. One example of that is the BBC drama about the Pre-Raphaelites which for some reason was misnamed as Desperate Romantics (as Germaine Greer pointed out The Romantics, such as Keats, had been dead for some time before the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood evolved).

I need not have worried. Jane Campion’s film about John Keats and his relationship with Fanny Brawne is told in a subtle, gentle way that gets under your skin and pulls at your heart strings. The photography is beautiful and creates a variety of moods throughout the film. The leading actors, Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish, have a fair physical resemblance to John Keats and Fanny Brawne (pictures of whom can be found in Andrew Motion’s excellent biography of Keats) and their portrayal of the young lovers, the uneasy beginning of their relationship and how it was frustrated by the cruelty of circumstance, is believable and deeply moving.

The house where the story is set (although it was not filmed there) is now a museum dedicated to Keats. Keats House in Hampstead is still open during the winter and costumes from the film are, for the moment, on display there.

If you have seen the film and have been inspired to find out more about Keats and Brawne then a good place to start is Motion’s biography of Keats, any edition of the published letters of Keats (they include his letters to Fanny Brawne) and any of the paperback editions of Keats’ poetry – where you will find the sonnet Bright Star! which he wrote especially for Brawne.

[The image above is from the website for the film, is copyright by them and is one of their free wallpapers.]

Mystery Magazine

Today I received a copy of the first issue of a new British magic magazine, Mystery Magazine. The editor is Walt Lees - magician, author and editor of well earned renown - and it is published by Magic Books By Post.

There are a number of things that I like about Mystery Magazine. I guess each of us will discover our own individual reasons for liking it. Mine include its quality of not clashing with or competing with other non-magic club periodicals. It is different enough from Magicseen and The LaBaL to justify my subscription to all three and not once have an overlap of articles, views or magic tricks. I am not going to go into depth about this issue's contents; you will just have to buy a copy and at a price of £2.50 that will hardly break the bank.

The magazine is monthly. It's full colour throughout and contains tricks, articles, reviews and news. Its format and contents is the result of Walt talking to people in the magic community and listening to what they would like. Walt's editorial clearly justifies the final result and so does reading the magazine.

Updates on Projects

The question that I have received most is ‘Why have you stopped uploading videos of your work?’ I have not stopped making the videos, they simply have not been uploaded yet. The reason for the delay is that I have been using different methods of filming other than time lapse photography and the results require more time in editing them into short videos. The reason for the change was to obtain a better quality of picture in the videos. The camera and software being used had a setback of a low resolution when in time lapse mode. It is a bit of an oddity considering all the other modes have a high resolution.

I have tried editing together a series of photographs for several oil paint portraits and the results are okay. Because the paintings take more than one day, it is a reasonable method to use but it is of no use when concentrating on a drawing or ink sketch which can be finished in an hour or two. It is too much trouble to get the right amount of photos, it interrupts my concentration and prolongs the task in an unacceptable way.

For these reasons, the time from the picture being completed and the video of the work being uploaded is now much greater.

Another reason, as far the project The Dead is concerned, is that the videos have been held back until after this year’s Remembrance Day. Although it was explained that the project is for Remembrance Day 2010, based on only one video from the project being made available there has been continual questioning from people regarding its use this year. Therefore, as stated above, no more videos from that project will be uploaded until sometime in November.

The only other piece of news is that the project Magicians has been given a longer time scale for completion due to the list of portraits required being lengthened.

LATE MAIL

LATE MAIL
by John Helvin
(with apologies to W. H. Auden and his poem Night Mail)

This is the mail train not crossing the border,
Not bringing the cheque nor delivering mail order,

No letters for the rich, no letters for the poor,
The Royal Mail is on strike and what is it for?

Streamlining and cutbacks are to be had;
Most of the workers regard this as bad.

Computerisation and potential less hours;
Management and union relationship sours.

I’d rather my mail was hand sorted whatnot,
Than expertly bungled by the new ‘I, Robot.’

But are these the issues? Is this the debate?
The news simply repeats that our mail will be late.

There’s no documentary. What are the details?
Will Christmas post consist only of emails?

Will the news be the same old tales of yore,
That the Royal Mail is failing – we’ve heard it before.

The postal worker’s story is yet to be told;
Will any film-maker make as so bold?

The Georgian House in Bristol

About a week ago I took Jill to visit the Georgian House Museum on Great George Street, just off Park Street in Bristol. Jill is avid about all things Georgian, especially if related to Jane Austen or gives an insight to the period in which Austen lived. She said she preferred this house to the one in Bath - No 1 Royal Crescent. There are differences, such as the museum in Bristol is free whereas No 1 Royal Crescent has an admission fee. I think both are excellent. I can see some differences due to a fee being charged for the Georgian house in Bath. They can afford to finance a shop, guides and so on. The lower amount of funding for the house in Bristol is apparent if you know what to look for, or rather to look for what is missing in terms of staff, brochures, a shop and so on. Even so, a lot of care has gone into making the Georgian House in Bristol well worth a visit (or more than one).

One point to mention is how easy it is to miss the correct street. On a prior visit to Bristol, Jill and I were directed to the wrong George Street. This time, before setting off, I made a point of using Google Earth to be absolutely sure of finding the place when we arrived in Bristol.

The man who had the house built was John Pinney. Here is a portrait of him in one of the rooms. Pinney was a wealthy slave plantation owner and the house has a room dedicated to the subject of slavery during the Georgian period and its connection to Bristol. It is not often that I see a house museum highlight, in any way whatsoever, the human cost that made the original owner wealthy enough to afford such a house. Even when a house was built by someone who had no direct connection with slavery, it was still a period when William Blake justifiably wrote of some working conditions in Britain as being within ‘Dark Satanic Mills.’


The house has on the walls, besides portraits of Pinney, paintings from the Georgian period including one by a relation of Sir Joshua Reynolds. In the dining area is one that has a detail that may be of interest to magic historians. It is of three children and one is building a house of cards. Look carefully at the cards and you will see that the backs of the cards are blank and the corners are square and not rounded. Similar cards are on display on a card table in another room. Packs of cards which are reproductions of those from around that period can be bought from The Card Collection. I bought a deck for Jill last year. What is interesting from a conjuring point of view is how very different the physical quality of the cards are from modern day ones and how much that affects using sleight of hand.

I could find no information as to who the artist was; the style reminds me of Gainsborough but if it was him the museum would have had a note somewhere stating that detail. If anyone can let me know who the artist is I would appreciate it.

The museum has four floors to explore and overall it is very atmospheric, informative and enjoyable.