Today’s video is very short so tomorrow I’ll add a podcast and mini documentary I found on one of the oddest Hollywood true crime stories I’ve ever heard of.
For now, here’s classic gothic horror poem Prince Kano by Edward Lowbury. Merry almost Halloween!
I searched for this poem for quite some time since a teacher read it to us at school. For some reason no matter how much I searched on google I couldn’t find it.
So here it is, a gothic poem by Edward Lowbury, Prince Kano:
In a dark wood Prince Kano lost his way
And searching in vain through the long summer’s day.
At last, when night was near, he came in sight
Of a small clearing filled with yellow light,
And there, bending beside his brazier, stood
A charcoal burner wearing a black hood.
The Prince cried out for joy: ‘Good friend, I’ll give
What you will ask: guide me to where I live.’
The man pulled back his hood: he had no face –
Where it should be there was an empty space.
Half dead with fear the Prince staggered away,
Rushed blindly through the wood till break of day;
And then he saw a larger clearing, filled
With houses, people; but his soul was chilled.
He looked around for comfort, and his search
Led him inside a small, half-empty church
Where monks prayed. ‘Father,’ to one he said,
‘I’ve seen a dreadful thing; I am afraid.’
‘What did you see, my son?’ ‘I saw a man
Whose face was like…’ and, as the Prince began,
The monk drew back his hood and seemed to hiss,
Pointing to where his face should be, ‘Like this?’
Good day! I’m in the middle of a crash novella writing month which is sucking out all the cotton wool from my little head. In the meantime here are a few weird films, the first three of which are watched and discussed in our latest Bizart podcast episode.
This is by Cyriak, a UK based animator whose work has appeared on Adult Swim. Baaa is joyous, silly and absurd:
Larry Carlson is a Vermont artist who makes A LOT of psychedelic videos. In Your Cube features a Ventriloquist’s dummy because… why not:
I might be obsessed with Scottish visual artist Rachel Maclean. Her world is the kind of world I want to live in: dark, weird and horrifically colourful. Here’s Lolcats:
Here’s a beautifully animated version of Kurt Schwitters’ Dadaist poem An Anna Blume, by Bulgarian creatives Compote Collective, or Vessela Dantcheva (Overlord), Ivan Bogdanov (Art Director) and Petar Dundakov (Composer).
At Land is a silent short made in 1944 by experimental film maker Maya Deren. Here a sea nymph explores land:
What will I do now it’s over? Start taking meth? It’s probably the only way. Anyway as you probably know one of the final episodes of Breaking Bad is Ozymandias, named after a poem by Shelley. Here’s the brilliant Bryan Cranston reading it and below is a print version. Enjoy!
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear —
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’
A surreal short film to go with a comedy poem about a man who recreates the Olympics in his own special way:
I must share with you my friend Steve’s (or Stephenage or Weeven) art blog.
He sells his proper art along with t-shirts etc from his website, but his blog is purely for entertainment.
Have a look and witness such delights as a picture and poem about Wayne Rooney (apparently his favourite dinner is something with mash). Also there is this picture of Charlize Theron:
I thought I’d add a silly poem I did originally for Braintree Ways under my character Renfrew Wise. I’ve also filmed myself reading silly stories on my youtube channel, who would miss that?:
Weep with terror at the pictures of me reading poetry during my student beatnik years (I am ashamed of nothing)
At the moment outside looks like this: 
and I have the chest and throat plague. Just think of all those prank calls I could be making and can’t. I don’t really make prank calls. Or do I? No, I really don’t. I am, however, coughing up phlegm.
Anyway I’ve been enjoying clips of comedian/poet Tim Key, here is one of them:
Madeleine Swann 