David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


01 July 2014

Link Meanie's Wrecked-Angle Axe


We recently referenced (here) The Meanies' great 10% weird.

Now we find this learned article at guitarnerd about Link Meanie's first guitar :
 Apart from the songs, another thing that  
 caught my eye was the guitar Link was  
 playing. It was a weird square thing... kind of  
 Bo Diddley looking but a lot less refined.  
 I loved how unique it was, how it sounded 
 and how Link had made it himself. 


Here's Bo Diddley with his ornamented Gretsch guitar, late 1950s.
       

   
There's such a vast cultural expression of acoustic and display engineering for this, O so very simple, intention and action : to tension a string between two points, to vibrate it and hear it, to enjoy the bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz yeah!

 Here's one such, below, designed to delight by its exceptional contrivance. Long before Kraftwork performed We are the Robots, it is attributed to the great French maker of automata Jacques de Vaucanson (1709 - 1782); repaired, apparently, in 1859 by the master magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin (1805 - 1871) after whom the young Erik Weisz would later name himself Harry Houdini. More recently, c.1979, it was further augmented to detect and visually project ambient Slave Guitar vibrations.
            
More from guitarnerd regarding the Link Meanie axe :
 On closer inspection, this guitar is VERY 
 home-made. Link explained it was actually 
 his first ever guitar… some Japanese Strat 
 thing, that he chopped up and then 
 surrounded the body in a box.  
 So basically… there’s a guitar 
 inside a guitar.

Slave Guitars : 
the guitar outside the guitar ...
                   
 detail
 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
 someone looks at something ... 

  LOGOS/HA HA