Charles Fort: an excerpt from The Book of the Damned

 

Charles H Fort collected and wrote about unusual events that were poorly explained, mostly things falling from the sky- meat, spiders, tiny crosses (thus giving his name to the eponymous fortean fall)- but any strange, inexplicable events in general; intrusions on our untidy reality of the many things in Heaven and Earth that are not dreamt of in our philosophy.

 

His influence to our work here at CutUpSound is in his reminder that explanations necessarily follow the event, which itself acknowledges no rules or prior realities.  Reality is not necessarily playing our game.  But whatever the case, keep good notes and use them to bedevil the self-proclaimed interpreters of that reality.  

 

This week's reading is an excerpt from "The Book of the Damned", published in 1919.  

 

"Astronomy" 

Alternate History: Wally Cox

 

Pelfrey & Rhodes: Imperialism, intro music

"Imperialism" was a computer game, produced by Frog City Software and SSI.  The soundtrack was written by Danny Pelfrey and Rick Rhodes.  The opening music sets the theme about 19th Century empire-building in a striking and appropriate way.  

A musical poem, actually.  About the release of the Genie, with the discovery of steam power.  The empires built on that and their inevitable conflict. Valiant heroism riding a rococo filigree of strings.  And through it all, the little MIDI toiling away like a full-blown symphony orchestra.  

play (2:19)

Luciano Albo: She's Leaving Home

 

Wait, that's Jesslyn Fax, in The Music Man-

 

This week's offering is from Luciano Albo, and it answers the musical question, what if the Beatles had been a Motown band?  It might have gone something like this...

 

Play 

Alternate history: Columbo

Vic Berger: Jeb Is a Mess

Vic Berger does a lot of tweaking of news footage.  I'm pretty sure most (all?) of these sentences are edited somehow.  The total effect captures the spirit of what happened to the leading candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, when he had to actually campaign.  

 Mr Berger includes this in much longer piece, as well. 

Standing By

Paul Frees

 

1) Obscure Monty Python behind the scenes at the Beeb.

 

2) I banged the Old Time Radio around and this fell out.