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Sunday, October 22, 2017

Spirit of Place: A Load of Old Bulls

If you'd asked me, I'd have said there was only one of the 1960s bull sculptures adorning the old Bull Ring. In fact it seems there were four, and since being placed 'in storage' after the centre's demolition, they've done a vanishing act. In common with a lot of modernist pulic art of the time, in fact, which is now being hunted.
The Birmingham Mail reported thusly:
They once stood guard at Birmingham’s famous 1960s Bull Ring shopping centre – but now they’ve vanished.

Artist Trewin Copplestone designed the set of four, two-metre high fibreglass bulls for the side of the Bull Ring shopping centre, built in 1963.

The artworks will have been familiar to the millions who passed through the Bull Ring before it was demolished over a decade ago – but their current whereabouts are a mystery.

Historic England, formerly English Heritage, has now launched a campaign to track them down.

They’re certainly not easy to hide – each sculpture was cast in a single piece from a polystyrene mould onto a metal frame and weighed nine tonnes

One of them was damaged by fire in 1983 but was later restored.

Tamsin Silvey, exhibitions manager at Historic England, said: “The bull forms set the Bull Ring apart from other shopping centres back in the 1960s.

“Backlit and standing proud at the top of the shopping centre, they became a landmark, a modernist emblem for the city centre as well as symbol for the determination of new Birmingham.

(http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/search-launched-missing-nine-ton-10614608.amp)

As far as I can see Copplestone is better known for his paintings nowadays although he has also written on architecture.
My personal opinion is that the current bull the tourists have their picture taken with, is a pale pretender in comparison to Copplestone's.
Inexplicable likes a soundtrack to my ramblings and this music may best represent the 'Continental' ambitions of so many 1960s developments. As you listen, picture yourself having a quiet drink after work on the terrace of the Matador pub in the Bull Ring in the 1960s. Where did the dream go wrong?

Hidden City: Anchor Exchange

The video which illustrates this post is now rather dated, since it shows the Central Library (sob...I can't wait for the utterly pedestrian building for which the library was demolished to be finished so that I can be rude about it) and that ridiculous Forward statue which is missed by no-one.
Naturally I haven't been inside Anchor Exchange. Nobody has - it's sealed up tighter than a fundamentalist virgin in a prison full of sexually-frustrated men. I have a feeling it looks different now - it was restored in 2010, as it still carries essential cablage. Naturally I would love to get in but it's not happening: even on the urbex forums it's on the list of places not even worth trying.

Sunday, October 15, 2017

In Which the Hound Recruits Staff

Goodness, it's been a busy week in the blogosphere. I don't mean that there have been an unprecedented number of posts on blogs, but that the authors of a number of blogs I follow have posted about being busy in one way or another. Personally I can't claim ever to be that busy, really. There is a reason for it - I simply need my space. To that end I never go to anything, row with everyone, and am generaly antisocial. I love that some people see this as selfish - it isn't, it's called survival. One of the reasons for my ruthless unbusyness is that I literally cannot cope with too much. Even too much stuff in my flat stresses me out. And I've found a way of dealing with some of the things which would otherwise occupy the busy witch - I have staff to do them.
Not human staff, of course. I will resist human staff to my last breath, and for the rather eccentric reason that it would be too much like being my mother or her sister. Apart from a few periods of only weeks my mother has never had to clean her own house, she's always had a cleaning lady. And her sister emigrated to Kenya in the last wave of colonial immigration in the 1950s so hasn't really lifted a finger in sixty years. She just sits around swigging gin, moaning about how hard life is, oh, and probably about me. Colonialism is a subject which I keep meaning to write about on this blog, and probably will do one day, when I have a spare week to write the post.
But magical servants are something completely different. My own opinion is that magical people all have particular sorts of magic they are good at, and from the moment I discovered that there are techniques of creating magical entities, or servitors, I was hooked. In common with all of chaos magic, this is not really a new magic but one which has existed for ever, in a new guise. On one level it isn't that different from the Peruvian worry dolls you can get which you give your worries to. In fact, it is exactly the same, just it doesn't always require a doll.
Using a doll for this is useful because it also calls on the ancient tradition of the golem, and thus taps into the human mythological imagination which is so important for magic. Personally I like to bring these things to life by blowing breath into them. Once the doll has fulfilled its task you can do whatever seems appropriate with it.
I have tended to find it easier to create an entity purely in my head. As we know, thoughts are things and if you think of something often enough, it grows in life and reality. It can help, though, to make a note of the entity's description so that it becomes a stable entity rather than a developing character in your imagination. This is the bit I love: I create them especially for purpose and fill them with the sort of ironic retribution, slapstick, and humour that I love. I have created an entity to attach themselves to a specific person and give them hell before now. I have created them to find things out in places I can't go. This is a form of magic which is literally adaptable to any circumstance.
Once created, your entity will just appear on and off in all sorts of situations. Like all magics, this one attracts strange coincidences and what have you, and your entity will bump into you as it goes about its job. A job which will tend to solve itself by these conincidences.
You can make them time-limited, or job-limited. Like this they just fizzle away when their job is over. There is no sadness or cruelty in this - the entity is a part of yourself which you are breaking off so that you don't have to do that task or think about that matter. For this reason this is also one of the most therapeutic magics because you can give them your problems to solve. Of course you can also formally end their existence in a way you think fitting. Sometimes I like to send them out to create havoc for turds. You won't read that in Scott Cunningham, but this is a blog about real witchcraft, not a fucking Llewellyn book.
Now you may say that these entities are not useful for material things. Of course if one could have the washing up done by magic like Mrs Weasley it would be perfect, but instead I've had to settle for an entity which washes up called Indesit.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Urban Grimoire: the And Then There Were None Incantation

I'm all of a tizzy. I'm watching Derren Brown and, as always happens, want him to marry me. Of course this may simply be the power of Derren Brown, but I think it could also be a reflection on the power of the large and small screen.
I have always loved the various film versions of Agatha Christie's novel, And Then There Were None. I first watched the 1940s version, and was then smitten by the wonderful Abbasi Hotel (www.abbasihotel.ir) in the 1970s version, and finally encountered the wonderful Hugh O'Brian's magnificent chest rug in the 1960s version. I'm afraid the latest version does nothing for me, and neither does Aidan Turner.
This is the one of Mrs Christie's adventures which of course has had to have its title changed to reflect modern sensibilities about race. Its subjects are vengeance, innocence, trust, and deceit - of course these are reflected in most detective fiction, but my point here is that they are the sort of moral issues which exactly motivate magical people. In fact the nursery rhyme which gave the book its title has always struck me as being just made for an incantation, to be used in a spell of reducing or banishing something. A modern version of the rhyme is given here (Source):
Ten little Soldier Boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.

Nine little Soldier Boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.

Eight little Soldier Boys travelling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.

Seven little Soldier Boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.

Six little Soldier Boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

Five little Soldier Boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were four.

Four little Soldier Boys going out to sea;
red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

Three little Soldier Boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Two little Soldier Boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was one.[9]

One little Soldier Boy left all alone;
He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.
And the video below contains a tune used for it from the 1940s film, should you wish to in-cant your incantation: