In my last post, the blog Follow The Yellow Brick Road was mentioned in passing; sticking to the theme, today I'm going to see The Wizard Of Oz on the big screen. (The Cornerhouse recently invited Twitterers to vote on their favourite festive films; if you were reading W&F last year, you'll already know this was my choice - and it just so happens to have been scheduled for my birthday!) The print has been digitally remastered and is apparently in all its full three-strip Technicolor glory; one of my favourite devices in the movie is the variation between the black and white dustbowl Kansas reality and the land of wonder and fantasy over the rainbow represented in full saturated colour (a fairly recent innovation in 1939 after the expensive process fell out of favour during the Great Depression which immediately followed its invention). I may leave the ruby slippers at home given the snow, but may all your White Christmas dreams come true, lovely readers... see you soon!
Showing posts with label The Wizard Of Oz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Wizard Of Oz. Show all posts
23 December 2010
Happy kitschmas
In my last post, the blog Follow The Yellow Brick Road was mentioned in passing; sticking to the theme, today I'm going to see The Wizard Of Oz on the big screen. (The Cornerhouse recently invited Twitterers to vote on their favourite festive films; if you were reading W&F last year, you'll already know this was my choice - and it just so happens to have been scheduled for my birthday!) The print has been digitally remastered and is apparently in all its full three-strip Technicolor glory; one of my favourite devices in the movie is the variation between the black and white dustbowl Kansas reality and the land of wonder and fantasy over the rainbow represented in full saturated colour (a fairly recent innovation in 1939 after the expensive process fell out of favour during the Great Depression which immediately followed its invention). I may leave the ruby slippers at home given the snow, but may all your White Christmas dreams come true, lovely readers... see you soon!
09 July 2010
Open day
So I was just bumbling around the internet looking for the opening hours of Manchester Craft & Design Centre and perusing the info on Debbie Smyth's awesome-looking Threadbare exhibition there as I'm aiming to fit it into the jam-packed W&F calendar, when, lo! I saw mention of this new Curated Place blog, which in itself is a work of interest and perhaps even beauty.
Tootling on through the recent posts, I saw that Andy Brydon, who is behind the CP curtain working the levers and pulleys, includes snaps of the Open City Manchester show I graced the launch of last night with my presence. (Blimey, these sentences are complicated in their structure, aren't they, readers? I must apologise: I have both a hangover and a disgustingly tight deadline to meet with the said hangover, and it's driven me to distraction somewhat.)
Anyway, the show is worth nipping to see, with all the pictures taken by amateur photographers who participated in the first Open City photography day on 23 May 2010, led by five professional Manchester-baed snappers Aidan O’Rourke, Andrew Brooks, Len Grant, Paul Herrmann and Mark Page. While some of the shots are a little on the cliched side and others felt somewhat staged, there are a number of surprising compositions and some interesting techniques. The number here is by Sue Langford, who I consequently bumped into at The Hillary Step as myself and Mr W&F gradually made the long way home from town with a flat bicycle tyre. (We had already stopped at The Whalley, which was full of scarily medicated patrons all sat at separate tables. It was like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest meets Night Of The Living Dead. Suffice to say, we didn't stay for a second drink.) I hope Sue doesn't mind me featuring her work - we were chatting about it last night (I like the font; she told me it's on a lock gate just up from Dukes 92), but I will make sure I ask her for permission post haste.
Cityco's Open City Manchester is downstairs in the Triangle shopping centre and runs from today to 29 July, and is open daily 10am–6pm. You can also peruse the photos in the show on this here Flickr site. There are two further upcoming Open City photography days on Saturday 17 July and on Sunday 22 August, both from 2–4pm. It's £10 to take part - book by emailing Mark Page via info@manchesterphotography.com.
Picture credit: Sue Langford, all rights reserved
Tootling on through the recent posts, I saw that Andy Brydon, who is behind the CP curtain working the levers and pulleys, includes snaps of the Open City Manchester show I graced the launch of last night with my presence. (Blimey, these sentences are complicated in their structure, aren't they, readers? I must apologise: I have both a hangover and a disgustingly tight deadline to meet with the said hangover, and it's driven me to distraction somewhat.)
Anyway, the show is worth nipping to see, with all the pictures taken by amateur photographers who participated in the first Open City photography day on 23 May 2010, led by five professional Manchester-baed snappers Aidan O’Rourke, Andrew Brooks, Len Grant, Paul Herrmann and Mark Page. While some of the shots are a little on the cliched side and others felt somewhat staged, there are a number of surprising compositions and some interesting techniques. The number here is by Sue Langford, who I consequently bumped into at The Hillary Step as myself and Mr W&F gradually made the long way home from town with a flat bicycle tyre. (We had already stopped at The Whalley, which was full of scarily medicated patrons all sat at separate tables. It was like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest meets Night Of The Living Dead. Suffice to say, we didn't stay for a second drink.) I hope Sue doesn't mind me featuring her work - we were chatting about it last night (I like the font; she told me it's on a lock gate just up from Dukes 92), but I will make sure I ask her for permission post haste.
Cityco's Open City Manchester is downstairs in the Triangle shopping centre and runs from today to 29 July, and is open daily 10am–6pm. You can also peruse the photos in the show on this here Flickr site. There are two further upcoming Open City photography days on Saturday 17 July and on Sunday 22 August, both from 2–4pm. It's £10 to take part - book by emailing Mark Page via info@manchesterphotography.com.
Picture credit: Sue Langford, all rights reserved
23 June 2010
A moment of fiction #4 - zines special!
Right, my latest literary round-up has been gently gathering momentum behind the scenes, but I’m now ready to pull back the curtain and reveal the pulleys and levers behind the magic in a special zines round-up.
Nice timing is tomorrow’s Midsummer House Party, the launch event for the new adult learning and engagement programme at the Whitworth Art Gallery. The shindig runs from 7.30-10.30pm in the South Gallery (the one with floor-to-ceiling windows and ivy wallpaper by Thomas Demand), and there will be crafty goings-on with Manchester Craft Mafia, poetry readings from friends of For Folk's Sake and DJ sets from Pull Yourself Together, usually seen in the surrounds of Common on Edge Street. As well as spinning the old wheels of steel, Dan and Hannah of PYT manage to write and edit a fanzine, called Pull Yourself Together like the night, which is published every two months and available in independent record shops around the UK. Email hello@pullyourselftogetherzine.co.uk, check out the website here, peruse the online back issues or hotfoot it to the Salford Zine Library to pore over the hard copies.
Talking of SZL, Matthew and Craig have been busy compiling the now six-month-old collection into a downloadable PDF file available for browsing purposes if you can’t always make it to their Islington Mill premises. The librarians aim to offer monthly updates, so keep popping back to their online space to ch-ch-check it out. And don’t forget to keep donating your zines and self-published books as they become available.
Anyway, without further ado, here's a quick round-up of other zines on the scene. If you know of others, please keep me posted via email or the comments function.
Things Happen is a new kid on the block, which you can get hold of in The Hive, Contact Theatre and the Cornerhouse (though not in the shop as it's free). Dan, the man in charge, says he’s hoping to distribute through other places too soon; in the meantime he’ll let you email him (dandidthis@live.com) to ask it he'll pop a copy in the post for you. Dan says: “Contributions are actively encouraged, but we are only likely to include stuff that is pushing in the same direction as us... I'm sure only people enthused by what we write will be the ones likely to want to contribute anyway.” For signposting, check out the first issue of Things Happen here.
Issues of The Hare can be picked up in Centro and Night & Day in the Northern Quarter, plus Tiger Lounge on Cooper Street. As the good people behind the self-published project live at the bottom of the Snake Pass, copies can also be had in three pubs in Glossop - The Oakwood, The Beehive and The Star. Brown bread topics range from sport to history, with fashion and gossip the white bread subjects and quite a spread of satirical political pokes forming the sandwich filling. Rob and Max take submissions and the guidelines are loose (articles of 600-1,000 words in length, original artwork and the like) – just email theharenewspaper@hotmail.co.uk with your ideas. The Hare also has a Facebook group, called The Hare Newspaper. So modern, you guys.
Bilingual (German/English) b&n magazine was already on its fifth issue when I snatched a copy in the aforementioned Common. You can get in touch with editor in chief Samantha Bail (email bunmagazine@gmail.com) with words and pictures or follow @bunmagazine on that there Twitter.
Other Magazine is an exciting new online sashay into essay-writing, fiction, photography and general silliness. Follow @othermag on Twitter or visit the website for more on contributions and wotnot.
Now, I'm not saying the others aren't, but Pantheon is proper. It has proper writers contributing and everything, including Manchester’s own Nicholas Royle and Tom Fletcher. The seasonal magazine of “assorted observations and tales” describes itself as “a house for all disciplines – art, creative writing, illustration, poetry, cookery, photography, cartoons and more. There are no predetermined themes or rules”. We like the sound of that. You can follow @pantheonzine on Twitter or email pantheonmagazine@googlemail.com for information on how to go about sending in work.
Other zines that have come to our attention but haven’t yet been properly explored are the marvellously named New Wave Vomit, strange fiction (prose and poetry) collaborative quarterly Dark Lane and the mysterious arty pamphlet The Mill Press, the first issue of which I picked up in the Cornerhouse yesterday.
Nice timing is tomorrow’s Midsummer House Party, the launch event for the new adult learning and engagement programme at the Whitworth Art Gallery. The shindig runs from 7.30-10.30pm in the South Gallery (the one with floor-to-ceiling windows and ivy wallpaper by Thomas Demand), and there will be crafty goings-on with Manchester Craft Mafia, poetry readings from friends of For Folk's Sake and DJ sets from Pull Yourself Together, usually seen in the surrounds of Common on Edge Street. As well as spinning the old wheels of steel, Dan and Hannah of PYT manage to write and edit a fanzine, called Pull Yourself Together like the night, which is published every two months and available in independent record shops around the UK. Email hello@pullyourselftogetherzine.co.uk, check out the website here, peruse the online back issues or hotfoot it to the Salford Zine Library to pore over the hard copies.
Talking of SZL, Matthew and Craig have been busy compiling the now six-month-old collection into a downloadable PDF file available for browsing purposes if you can’t always make it to their Islington Mill premises. The librarians aim to offer monthly updates, so keep popping back to their online space to ch-ch-check it out. And don’t forget to keep donating your zines and self-published books as they become available.
Anyway, without further ado, here's a quick round-up of other zines on the scene. If you know of others, please keep me posted via email or the comments function.
Things Happen is a new kid on the block, which you can get hold of in The Hive, Contact Theatre and the Cornerhouse (though not in the shop as it's free). Dan, the man in charge, says he’s hoping to distribute through other places too soon; in the meantime he’ll let you email him (dandidthis@live.com) to ask it he'll pop a copy in the post for you. Dan says: “Contributions are actively encouraged, but we are only likely to include stuff that is pushing in the same direction as us... I'm sure only people enthused by what we write will be the ones likely to want to contribute anyway.” For signposting, check out the first issue of Things Happen here.
Issues of The Hare can be picked up in Centro and Night & Day in the Northern Quarter, plus Tiger Lounge on Cooper Street. As the good people behind the self-published project live at the bottom of the Snake Pass, copies can also be had in three pubs in Glossop - The Oakwood, The Beehive and The Star. Brown bread topics range from sport to history, with fashion and gossip the white bread subjects and quite a spread of satirical political pokes forming the sandwich filling. Rob and Max take submissions and the guidelines are loose (articles of 600-1,000 words in length, original artwork and the like) – just email theharenewspaper@hotmail.co.uk with your ideas. The Hare also has a Facebook group, called The Hare Newspaper. So modern, you guys.
Bilingual (German/English) b&n magazine was already on its fifth issue when I snatched a copy in the aforementioned Common. You can get in touch with editor in chief Samantha Bail (email bunmagazine@gmail.com) with words and pictures or follow @bunmagazine on that there Twitter.
Other Magazine is an exciting new online sashay into essay-writing, fiction, photography and general silliness. Follow @othermag on Twitter or visit the website for more on contributions and wotnot.
Now, I'm not saying the others aren't, but Pantheon is proper. It has proper writers contributing and everything, including Manchester’s own Nicholas Royle and Tom Fletcher. The seasonal magazine of “assorted observations and tales” describes itself as “a house for all disciplines – art, creative writing, illustration, poetry, cookery, photography, cartoons and more. There are no predetermined themes or rules”. We like the sound of that. You can follow @pantheonzine on Twitter or email pantheonmagazine@googlemail.com for information on how to go about sending in work.
Other zines that have come to our attention but haven’t yet been properly explored are the marvellously named New Wave Vomit, strange fiction (prose and poetry) collaborative quarterly Dark Lane and the mysterious arty pamphlet The Mill Press, the first issue of which I picked up in the Cornerhouse yesterday.
01 February 2010
Emergency exit
It's February already, so only a month before culture is booted out of the glossy glassy Urbis building by football. It's definitely not worth crying over spilt milk - the petitions have been signed, the letters have been written and even the obligatory Facebook group has been joined - but when I popped into Urbis on Friday, I'm afraid I just wasn't sad enough to shed a tear for anything much.
Maybe it was a nagging headache that made me disinterested in the hip-hop show (even listening to a bit of Ruthless Rap Assassins for old time's sake was dampened by the fact that the footage wasn't in synch with the music). Perhaps it was the slight back-slapping feeling to Urbis Has Left The Building (still a great title, though). Even the Ghosts of Winter Hill did little to exorcise my bad mood, such was the overwhelming sensation that all Mancunian TV amounts to is Coronation Street and what looks more and more like an enforced, bitter relocation of certain BBC departments to a blustery campus stuck out at a tram terminus in Salford Quays. I did like the mock-ups of front rooms through the decades, however, and a wonderfully named episode of World In Action about the Crescents called No Place Like Hulme. See, it's not all negative.
And I have seen plenty of good stuff at Urbis in the past; from potting sheds about sustainable urban gardening to fabulous Matthew Williamson frocks. It's just a shame Urbis is leaving the building seemingly by the back door, but then I suppose being sent off early is never going to be the glamorous way out.
Maybe it was a nagging headache that made me disinterested in the hip-hop show (even listening to a bit of Ruthless Rap Assassins for old time's sake was dampened by the fact that the footage wasn't in synch with the music). Perhaps it was the slight back-slapping feeling to Urbis Has Left The Building (still a great title, though). Even the Ghosts of Winter Hill did little to exorcise my bad mood, such was the overwhelming sensation that all Mancunian TV amounts to is Coronation Street and what looks more and more like an enforced, bitter relocation of certain BBC departments to a blustery campus stuck out at a tram terminus in Salford Quays. I did like the mock-ups of front rooms through the decades, however, and a wonderfully named episode of World In Action about the Crescents called No Place Like Hulme. See, it's not all negative.
And I have seen plenty of good stuff at Urbis in the past; from potting sheds about sustainable urban gardening to fabulous Matthew Williamson frocks. It's just a shame Urbis is leaving the building seemingly by the back door, but then I suppose being sent off early is never going to be the glamorous way out.
31 December 2009
The witching hour
Billie Burke as Glinda in The Wizard Of Oz, 1939, dir. Victor FlemingChristmas just wouldn't be Christmas without The Wizard Of Oz, and, despite an initial panic attack that the big day came and went without me so much as giving a passing thought to the plight of Dorothy and co trapped on the other side of the rainbow, I've done a bit of digging in the schedules and have discovered that, thankfully, I've not missed this festive fixture, which will be aired on Five tomorrow at 3.50pm.
Letting your imagination run wild in the glorious Technicolor land of Oz should provide the perfect anecdote to a New Year hangover, although I'm not so sure that the two slots scheduled to precede the film fit that particular bill. Firstly, there's The Muppets' Wizard Of Oz, made in 2005 and featuring Ashanti, Quentin Tarantino and Queen Latifah among others; then there's one of those "making of" programmes, this one patronisingly (I'm sure) hosted by the shrill Angela Lansbury. Even doped up on Pepto-Bismol and Co-codamol, I don't think I could cope with those.
The Wizard Of Oz was made in 1939, so it turned 70 some time in the past year; one reason alone to check it out now if you haven't caught it in a while. Another, for me at least, is the recent resurgence in interest in the back catalogue of film director David Lynch, whose oeuvre is patchworked with references to The Wizard Of Oz, from Blue Velvet (Isabella Rossellini's character is called Dorothy and wears red shoes) to Mulholland Drive (the jitterbug opening credits mirror the jitterbug scene deleted from The Wizard Of Oz - although it appeared in the stage version I saw during last year's panto season and had me confused as long as it took to get to a computer and look it up on the oracle of the internet).
Wild At Heart, itself 20 years old in 2010, is littered with The Wizard Of Oz imagery, not least in the penultimate scene, when the Good Witch (played by Sheryl Lee, aka Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks) floats down in a bubble and urges Sailor Ripley not to turn away from love: "If you are truly wild at heart, you'll fight for your dreams."
Just like Dorothy Gale, eh?
Sheryl Lee as Good Witch in Wild At Heart, 1990, dir. David Lynch
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