Impressionists of exo solar planets part 2

 more impressionist  exo solar planets  using a combination of  chunky world builder and  freeware photo  manipulation  app   tools   but aiming more for the  picture book

note that  many movie    alien planets are filmed in climate oriented parts of Earth  and thus  Morocco,  New Zealand and Iceland  feature prominently as the backdrop of fantasy worlds   et astra

this could be the  need for desert  forest or  rocky worlds or that  such locations  offer only 20% of the production costs of  the USA and western Europe

 

fantasy worlds which  inevitably  find themselves in the twitter sphere as  the personal property of   gangs  of  controlled trolls " who not only have the  G,O,T.  box sets  but   I  read the books years before- and  I have read all of  Robin Hobb's  novels  too!!" 

 

you know the thing  -

 Game of Thrones  season eight Iceland locations provided an intense background  to the episode  featuring  the  natural cataclysm  that overwhelmed _____ (spoiler)  did not expect the  pitiless  outcome  of the battle with the  Army  of  the undead which reintroduced deceased characters  from season one  fighting on the side of the twin usurpers (spoiler)  and  that every male from the house of Baratheon  and a couple from the house of Lannister all had the chance however briefly  to occupy the Iron throne (spoiler)  and that after the  feature length climatic battle  it was  good  to see the fandom  wished for ending  of the triumphant  dragon scarred true King  Jon Snow marrying  Daenys Targaryen and ruling as equal rulers (spoiler)

 

but then again i was once trolled and  flamed  for a Amazon  review where I dared reveal  that the novel  in  question was "The second book in a trilogy!!!!!!!!! and that  really spoilt the whole thing  for them !!!!!!!!"

 

a lot of tweeters write they are GUTTED  by the  news that  Barry Manilow got married  or GUTTED that "Space Above and Beyond" was axed  in 1995  or GUTTED  that one of the CGI generated  crew of Thunderbirds are Go  is quitting Tracey Island   to enter politics

well as I can tell you having had major life threatening emergency  abdominal surgery   I was the only  one who was  actually GUTTED-  for everyone else it is just a figure of speech

 

 

 my visions of other worlds  a selection  of   exo solar planets  

 

 

Tau Ceti    11.9  light years  away  star G8

there is a theory that Tau Ceti has no  planetary system but  three gigantic  asteroid belts  thus here  the night sky is  a   continuous  super Leonid shower of   sun grazing comets  and meteorites from asteroid collisions    an abstract  impression

 

 

 

 

40  Eridani  15.9 light years triple star  a painting  inspired by Buddhist state of mindfulness    a focus for    praying and meditating  on a sacred  mountain

 

  

 

 

 

61 cygni  11,2 light years  away  double star  K7  K5 originally intended to show high tech   it became  a version  of a  Dutch old master  rainy  landscape of the 17th century

  note the 61 cygni double stars barely noticeable in the far right   as a  storm approaches  overwhelming the high tech

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Captain Nelson Pirate

 

 

 

 

Captain Nelson  is  one of the pirates  who did not seem to make it into popular culture  but belongs   whole heartily   to the  era of  the  General  history or Charles Ellms  Pirates own  book

 

Nelson    with   a fearsome reputation on the eastern seaboard   but no recorded  first  name  is  mentioned in the briefest  of  biographies as  either  no relation or a  distant relation of the  hero of  Trafalgar (with whom he was   perhaps contemporary  ) and not at all in any modern  Pirate encyclopaedia

 

Nelson  you can call him    "Mad Jack Nelson"  or "Dangerous  Nelson"  was   the spoilt son   of a rich father   who bought him a farm on  Prince Edward Island    where young "Dangerous " Nelson  married  and grew potatoes  and fruit  for market  which he  took to market in his small ship.

One day Nelson was disgraced on Prince Edward  Island  and banished to America  where  the new cut throat  ex fruit sailor  Captain Nelson   remodelled  his Potato  ship as a 10 gun " little New York battleship"   and  began a  career of  undated and unrecorded  infamous  piracy. 

 

A destroyer of  English and Ditch shipping  whose rich cargoes  (fruit and potatoes?) he sold on  in New York   in a three year reign  of unhistorical terror    Nelson and his partner Morrison  became "the richest of  rich men" 

Sailing back to Prince Edward island  "where he was neither arrested or  hanged "  to collect his wife and family  Nelson's battleship was lost in the fog " within sight of Montauk  with the gold of sixteen  prizes   on board   and although  Morrison and crew were drowned

Nelson landed safely  in New York "where he was neither arrested or  hanged "   living  richly  respected  and peacefully  with  his wife and family   to a great age 

like many other  nameless captains  out of  Irving's Golden dreams   with  the starving beggar  Henry Every   looking in

 

The  wreck of Nelsons Golden Montauk belongs more to off shore of Coney island   and the whole nelson story is a passable  but un archived tale  of the glorious rolling  rollicking  Pirate stereotype

Impressionists of exo solar planets

 

 

 

There are a number of excellent alien world builder  software programs such as arc world builder and Celestia   with libraries of world  parts  and  suns  from A to  M  and i have used  many but on the whole  they are Avatar clone apps or simply  build a fractal  earth and oceans  and you just add  two suns for a desert  world build a  wookie  crashing Pandora forest planet   or make it snow  for the  hothy  ice planets -  good as they are  the arc builder software  is one  owes more to Bonestell  gaseous    eruptions  of the 1950s  than  to Paul's pulp  life on other planet  illustrations  of the 1920s

 

I decided to make more impressionist  exo solar planets  using a combination of  chunky world builder and  freeware photo  manipulation  app   tools

 

 my visions of other worlds  a selection  of   extra solar planets seen at sunrise

 

 

 

Delta Pavonis  18.6 light years  star G6  the start of the early morning shift

 

 

 

 

 

Epsilon  Eridani  10.7 light years  star K2 an ocean   with divers

 

 

Epsilon Indi   11,2 light years  star  K6  view of a  desert  storm on planet  with  45 degree tilt to star

 

 

 

I  am making a slow recovery with  my abdominal surgical scar now only 20cm wide

 

 my latest poem "Rockette"  is on the theme of  woman in space  as seen in  1930s -1950s sci- fi  pulp covers  being the reality for the space age

   still fragmentary   with emphasis on  the   innuendo  of an all male crew on a long mission

 and that  in the 1950s " women too served in those days  as   deputy  assistant  unaccredited white scientist or  part qualified  probationary junior space pilot"

 

Aura Rhanes Space blonde reticulated by shapes of Gray

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you may still see in second hand shops  encyclopaedias of unsolved mysteries  with chapters  called "what killed the  dinosaurs?" the only survivor of the Marie Celeste speaks out" "Anastasia the lost grand duchess"  and a little section on UFOs  illustrated with blurred  saucers  overshooting must be faked bolted discs and  "can you believe  it" references to /Arnold and /Adamki

 

When you could find cheap paperbacks with titles like flying saucers are hostile,"  "the UFO phenomenon"   and "in search of the extraterrestrials "   written in the 1970s  which I read in the 1990s  with  accounts of daylight  contacts with  humans  such a the very similar Socorro, Newark valley and Valensole  alien visitors  all modelled around the landing diorama of a shiny round object  in a field  and two crew members   or what  seemed to me  at the time  the story of the luckiest Brazilian on earth  and his  extra sexual encounter with the girl  from  Beta Hydri- since however    claimed to be an early CIA sponsored  black ops L.S.D trip  involving a herd of goats

an encounter like many of that era   with  blonde space pilots  wearing little more than goggles and flying helmet named  Aura Rhanes or Semjeja   who choose one ordinary Joe  to be  instructed  in a mission   , picked him up time and time again   then cooled off  "and when I saw Aura Rhanes in a street later she ignored me!!"

 

 These UFO books were much more fun  to read than the present day  Gray literature  based as it is of government cover-ups of the  Zeta Reticuli  Grays "Bugsie, Hoppity and Blik" probing paedo probing  over generations  in exchange  for developing  stealth  aircraft

and  where now  most repetition  of  the saucers is either the  cover-up  of the Roswell balloon hoax or the  1980  Rendelsham forest  lighthouse sighting  which it should be noticed took place at Christmas time  and  the effort the USAF  made to cover up this  proved  by   a newly  declassified Dec  31st 1980 report  "11.59pm    persistent bright lights in the sky   for period of 20 minutes over surrounding area

 

and instead of multiple contactee books  we had  Nick Pope in the UK   who had made a career on  what  may only  be    as  is  alleged YTS  work experience   at the ministry of defence  unidentified  aerial phenomena  desk for a few months in the 1990s  and who passed himself as "keeper of secrets " which did not really make up for the repetive   lack of evidence in any of his books and interviews

 

alas Nick Pope is no longer even "the  keeper of secrets"  as the   UK ministry of defence UAP /UFO files have now been declassified   in the National archives and online and  even appear as part of a teatime TV programme   about 1000 years of state secrets presented by a former Secretary of State for Defence !

where you look for "Mr Janus  alien in the  British establishment " the files  are  mainly  red balloon chasing, and passing traffic of bored letters  to school children  who had seen Venus  and  drew  neatly labelled pictures of colourful spaceships  in support of this

 cover-ups that were cover-ups in the Thatcher years  soon date  like  the idea that  the USA is run by  Gray probers who  created stealth technology  in 1949  but who had to manage  a cover-up to convince a   1950 contactee that they had driven by a   grounded flying saucer parked by the road side  and  "remember being  asked  to stop  by the alien crew to  help them fix it "

this is  only one  way to  a F117

 

and not half the fun of  contacting "humans just like us but much  hotter " in a chrome cruiser from Clarion and being  informed during the   our superior technology tour  for   weak earthlings  that they came from  "what you know as the planet Mars, the other side of  Mercury" or  that stand by of celestial navigation  "an invisible galaxy near Neptune "

 

 

What If -Sir John Wayne

My poem set in a alternative history where John Wayne was born British  and the  now unfashionable star of  Raj  and Zulu set  colonial pictures

John Wayne  as  film buffs will know did make a Movie  with Oliver Hardy as his  co star

What If -Sir John Wayne

 

 

 

Sir John Wayne  star of many a colonial boy movie

stands with awe and more awe the words of  sir Henry Newbolt  to a close hall of Eton harrowed primes

not just pride in your country

it's Montagu Love

 

red shipped square  to gatling

  square bullets  for infidels

 

big john sir john bible john 

the iconic Wayne

topee

trusting in western lee-enfield

bearers behind

Greek dancing tents

camp coffee label

 

big john short fare to America

rendering America

 one half of the comedy duo Hardy and Wayne

 

associated British Gainsborough pictures

flew wooden hurricanes and never spats

white hunter

auk hunter

biopics of the man who founded imperial tobacco and  the man who created Empire Day

 

played every hero of federated Nyasaland

and in 1960  wi/th money from his shorts paid for produced  starred in and directed  the epic  "Relief of  Lucknow"

remember Lucknow?

 

iconic Wayne

pleased to be mistaken for a retired Simla civil servant

and advertises  brown sauce

 

 

A World of Tyrants remembered 2070-1970

 

 

 

As I mentioned in previous blogs  the 2070 s  will see the end of the Nation state    a turning away from city living   to a new femto technology created  countryside  and the first attempts to build  a  universal world state  based around a scattered  world population of less than 90 million

 

the 1970s by contrast  were my earliest memories  and  a rather distant awareness of  everywhere tyrants and dictators who did not trouble me  at the age of 4

 

Tyrants in those days were judged as rulers of regimes not favourable to  western visitors  or TV reception  this  of course in a world divided between American and soviet one way weapons systems to be  that  of  the anonymous   red  mass of   communist bloc Warsaw pact red communist menace    with walls  and parallels    so much that  at the  time i believed the great wall of china to be the same era  and purpose  as the Berlin wall  but covering the whole Chinese border-  it doesn't- just the way the map was coloured in

 

the anonymous  big  red mass dictators was  made of  the ex  kingdoms  ending in "ia" were called soviet satellites  which  made them sound like sputnik 2, pupniks   and the dictators  turned out to be called  anonymous  generic Erick Todnov chairman and general secretary of the  central committee for state planning 

 it has  been  calculated  i believe  today that  more death threats are uttered  each  day on Twitter  than in the entire  puptnik era   of dictatorship

 

what I noticed about the red mass was the  number of   boiler plate victory monuments often erected in countries i knew were on the losing side in the second world war and that you could built for example a kalingrad  palace of the soviets in a quarter  of the building blocks it took to make a model of konigsberg castle

but to me the most   terrifying thing of a tyrant were the children of my own age   white shirted young pioneers with little red scarves   loving the outdoor exercise , singing marching songs in praise of generic Erick Todnov and behaving  just like the worst sneaks and tell the teachers

only North Korea has their little sneaks left and ironically they will be the vanguard of  the future unification movement

as North Korea is not a dictatorship but a group identity

 

 

There were also   emperors in this four year olds world not the "kaisers and tsars" of his grandmothers youth  but  more along the lines of "I am emperor and I want dumplings " autocrats

both had near identical walking  toy lions  waving  one paw  as  heraldic arms

such as  the  crown coiffured shah of Persia  celebrating 2500 years of Iranian monarchy   with  a costume parade ,a square  headed dynast  who was as I later discovered  was the  grandson of the second standby driver on a goat manure delivery cart

 or the emperor of Ethiopia   I had  only just learnt (from flags and emblems of the world) about  the lion of Judah  dynasty tracing its origins back to king  Solomon  emperor  too small  for his throne   when said lion was deposed

the  first event happening  in Africa I can remember

 

with the end of  world dictatorship re red  mass or  US supported  south American juntas only North Korea  we can safely in the west call a tyranny  and  draw attention  to its failure to admit western visitors or use the internet  after all this time

founded in the aftermath of the second world war    and based as with all dictatorships   on  the publics belief in the  authority of the leaders personality   for many years classed as part of the red mass sort of an eastern hoxha's Albania in isolation   boredom will be its revolution

 

in history tyrants rarely meet their ends from a n Harmodius or Princep  standing at the street corner

 and as   autocrats they are  more likely to meet their deaths in similar circumstances as   well protected  tyrants such as   Darius III  or the Roman emperor  Macrinus in the ancient world   and  further examples all the way to Ceausescu

from  four hour standing ovation and golden throne   to escaping  in the back of a  broken down bottari truck and  finally being  beaten to death  with a tyre iron by their own  bodyguards

 

  for every autocrat with  the cognomen "cruel" or "terrible"    there are others known by the nickname "flute player" or "bell ringer"

more sauce bottle than Sauron

fifty true stories stranger than fiction

fifty true  stories stranger than fiction is one of the anthologies published by Odhams press in the 1930s

 fifty memoirs from hard as nails Cape Horner's,  gold rush prospectors , foreign legionnaires, soldiers of fortune .bandits, gun runners,  early motorists gangstes and  white hunters  aware as one  author comments "that they have lived  into a softer age"

 

belonging to the genre of ripping yarns  no greater amount of tobacco has ever before been  chewed in  one volume

here is "life as I lived it two fisted " with authors names such as Dare du Bois Philips, ex legionnaire 1384,  or Pousse Cailloux

 

my favourites are:

Thrills On A Windjammer

Lynch Law In The West

Mysteries  In The South Seas

The Man Who Snatched A Throne

Ambush

Dead Men Tell No Tales

Log Of A Hell Ship

The Death Valley  -The Gates Of Hell

 

 illustrated is  the scene from  mysteries in the south sea's   by  captain Ragnar Nyberg  " Captain Nyberg    encounters   the Austrian born " king of the cannibal islands" and his dead companion   locked in  cages during a  period of tabu"

 

 The stories may lack  what we call an  awareness of   in present norms equality and diversity they  and assume contemporary attitudes to race and animal rights

 As a British publication it is course full of Empire memoirs   tales of wild Canada, the South Seas  Africa and the far  East

 Natives from Banayoro to Cork are part of the empire "it was nine years since   the death  of queen Victoria  yet they still talked of the great white queen   and  still do for all i know today" and  happy  under the flag  unless  they drank whiskey or listened to a  German

 but  more of the content is  set   in  the    frontier of California, or  Alaska  where a early motor  car(Haynes marque) can be held up by bandits outside Santa Barbara  " i was in the act of letting out the clutch  when we heard a series of shots"  or  in "dead men tell no tales " one  Klondike prospector recollected  in the company of a native American and canoe he and  his buddy  had commandeered to get to Dawson that on journeys end  fumbling in his jacket  his  buddy Sacramento   "  "empties all six chambers into the Indian's body,  the man was staring at him with  his usual contemptuous  expression when he fired "

 

 

 however each story  often blatantly  violent   is it is should be seen  as historical documents   with   now out of print first hand accounts of earthquakes ,  sailing ships ,attacks on pirates , treasure hunts    lion taming acts   and big game /man hunting  -although modern readers may feel disgusted by the   contemporary belief that" a Rhinoceros is a veritable El  Dorado " or that one safari client a Philadelphia lawyer  can "acquire a very decent bag including besides  his lion, rhinos  buffalo eland , leopard  kooodoo  and other  heads  and skins all of them very good stuff"