enthusiasm

theme crisis

pilgrim — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:03:08 +0000

It seems that I’ve done something unforgiveable with the Innsmuth theme, in which the comments system is utterly screwed. Normal service will be restored asap.

(possibly) related:

Two thousand and one, plus seven

pilgrim — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:49:10 +0000

Enthusiasm became a blog seven years ago today. This is what it looked like for the first couple of weeks of its life, and this is the page that sat under /enthuse/ prior to its becoming a blog. None of the navigation links are functional on these pages.
No comments, no post titles, no blog roll (not a dynamically generated one, anyway), no RSS feeds, no datura, and no “novelty choking hazard”.
Thank you for reading all these years (if that’s what you’ve been doing).
I know there’s not been as much happening here recently as there sometimes is. Actually I’ve been busy building a new site, which I should be able to announce in three weeks or so…

(possibly) related:

Great White Hunter

pilgrim — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:56:25 +0000

As usual with FFFF, I have no idea who is responsible for this. At larger resolution (for which you should click through from the page linked here) it appears this image is advertising clothing of some sort. I think it’s rather wonderful anyway. Don’t nobody say I ain’t flexible.

(via FFFF)

(possibly) related:

Ken Campbell 1941-2008

pilgrim — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:17:03 +0000

The day I came closest to meeting Ken Campbell was sometime in early 1977. A friend and I had gone along to the Liverpool School of Language, Music, Dream and Pun, to see what I believe was the final performance of Illuminatus! Advance promotion had indicated that admission was by donation, but we were so far down the queue that by the time we reached the door there were only a couple of seats left, and they wanted donations in excess of whatever we were able to offer, and we went away, disappointed. I don’t know how or why I’ve never caught up with him somewhere along the way. Somehow it always seemed enough to know he was there, and now he isn’t. Damn.

The Campbell work I’d most like to see again was Unfair Exchanges a TV play he wrote and appeared in, back in 1985, in which the telephone network becomes sentient. I’d be more than obliged if someone who has a copy would put it somewhere that I can find it…

Wikipedia | Guardian obituary and a remembrance by Michael Billington (also Graun). Another, fuller obituary by PR Mark Borkowski.

(possibly) related:

Can’t You Hear Me Calling, Caroline?

pilgrim — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:15:46 +0000

I did make a very brief post about the Mills Brothers, back in the first month of this blog’s existence, nearly seven years ago. I’m revisiting them now to offer a track which turns out to be rather more obscure than I would have expected — I’ve just been through all the Mills Brothers recordings on the AMG database, and I didn’t find the track anywhere. This version of Can’t You Hear Me Calling, Caroline (Roma, Gardner) is ripped from a vinyl compilation I bought back in the mid 80s called Goodbye Blues (MCA, 1984) which is not the same as any of the compilations under that name of which AMG is aware — so, quite apart from it being perfectly delicious, it’s pretty hard to find. The picture above is a cropped version of the one used on my vinyl.

I can’t put a date to this recording, but my guess is sometime in the early 1940s. Most of the compilation dates from the 1930s, which was the Brothers’ golden age, although at least one track (Opus One) is from as late as 1954.

(possibly) related:

passing weirdness

pilgrim — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:35:33 +0000

It’s come to my notice that something is wrong with the blog: links to posts, comments, archives and so forth are all non-functional at present, and may have been the case for a while. Normal services will be resumed once I work out wtf is going on.

UPDATE, minutes later: Heh. A little matter of permalink settings, now fixed. As you were.

(possibly) related:

Rock Art of England

pilgrim — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:42:43 +0000

Gled Law, Northumberland

New site which aims to catalogue the rock art of northern England.

(via Guardian)

(possibly) related:

half past july already

pilgrim — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:52:27 +0000

Terribly, terribly New Yorker-ish, but it speaks to me. I’m loving the pipe.

Apologies, once again, for the silence. I’ve been having another slump. Will try harder.

(via FFFF)

(possibly) related:

droplets

pilgrim — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:59:13 +0000

Left: All the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc. Right: All the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density. more…

(via information aesthetics)

(possibly) related:

mystery white boy, resolved

pilgrim — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:49:23 +0000

It’s taken almost twenty years, but I finally identified a mysterious and rather wonderful recording which iirc I posted here a couple of years ago. Ah, yes. Described at that time as

a flower of exuberance, blossoming in most unlikely fashion from one of the least exuberant American immigrant subcultures of which I am presently aware

which still seems about right. The audio link in that post is long extinct, but here’s a new one.
My Little Old Shack in Minneapolis, Minnesota is the work of comedian Harry Stewart (biography, discography) in the guise of Yogi Yorgesson, with Johnny Duffy and his Scandahoovians. Recorded in 1950, forensics reveal a bunch of plays on Dr Demento’s show in the early 70s. Stewart was actually of Norwegian descent, and by the looks of things he had a whole dressing up box of national comedy stereotypes — none of which I have investigated so far, but frankly they don’t look entirely appetising. The past is a strange place.

Shack itself is a parody version of My Little Grass Shack In Kealakekue, Hawaii, which according to Demento’s database was recorded by Ted Fio Rito & His Orchestra in 1934, although I have a version by Kanui and Lula on Rounder’s wonderful Hawaiian Steel Guitar Masters 1928-34 which claims to be from 1929. Either or both of these dates could be unreliable.