Path: news.nzbot.com!not-for-mail
From: parry@perfectmail.com (Parry)
Newsgroups: alt.surrealism
Subject: Re: Elag...concrete art
Date: 6 Jul 2003 22:22:59 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com/
Lines: 185
Message-ID: <36a623f.0307062122.2c029bf9@posting.google.com>
References: <3ED605C1.E74C1DD1@blueyonder.co.uk> <3EEAAC85.7697E7F4@cloud9.net> <3EEB8C26.30DAA2DF@blueyonder.co.uk> <3EED3142.35C5EB6C@cloud9.net> <36a623f.0306160117.6bbfaec4@posting.google.com> <3EEE9CC2.8ED79BB9@cloud9.net> <36a623f.0306230726.2a69ae0@posting.google.com> <3EF92758.23624668@cloud9.net> <36a623f.0306291032.5bfe0f32@posting.google.com> <3F019415.E1063E0E@cloud9.net> <36a623f.0307041255.700acef8@posting.google.com> <3F066947.7537C31D@cloud9.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.91.182.246
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Trace: posting.google.com 1057555380 9404 127.0.0.1 (7 Jul 2003 05:23:00 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: 7 Jul 2003 05:23:00 GMT
Xref: news.nzbot.com alt.surrealism:40
elag <elag@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:<3F066947.7537C31D@cloud9.net>...
[snips]
Apologies in advance if I'm overly loquacious. Tends to happen when
I'm avoiding other tasks.
> > > Hey, I've always pined for my own theatre where I can show Stan Brakhage
> > > films, Silent movies, and Black & White cartoons... pay as you exit.
> > > Maybe people over there might be bored enough to take a chance on
> > > distinctly opposite fare. I could charge 5 bucks to attract all the
> > > cheapskates and deadbeats and maybe even break even. I could rent all
> > > those really obscure films I've only read about and that you hardly ever
> > > see even in NYC.
> >
> > A common daydream of my own, too. When the train station closed, I
> > imagined hollowing out the building and projecting Von Stroheim movies
> > in it.
>
> Nice coincidence... I was just wondering about the name of the director
> of "Greed" (1924). Sometimes I confuse him w/ Otto Preminger.
>
> Maybe, someday I really can realize my idea on some level. After all
> I've seen films & screened my films in places which were little more
> that storefronts, bars, rooftops, &tc. I'll have to watch for an opportunity.
A new daydream: touring remote areas of South America, Africa and Asia
with a projector, generator, and handful of films, screening them
wherever the hospitality seems right to feed and shelter you for the
evening.
> > > I wonder how much they're asking?
> >
> > Well, there's a number for inquiries. They probably can't ask for
> > much. And they say they have quite low property taxes.
>
> I guess Moosomin is a bit far for me... I hope somebody comest up w/ a
> more interesting use for it than selling the latest sausages fro the
> "dream factory".
>
> > > > * Did you know Canada's flag didn't always look like a blood-stained
> > > > rag.
...
> > I'd like to see what other designs they have stored away. Perhaps a
> > white flag with the word "FLAG" printed on it, or a picture of a
> > sasquatch having sex with a mandrill, or a big pile of bear shit, or a
> > coat hanger,
>
> coat hanger?
I just think a coat hanger makes for a strong, simple graphic.
Certainly better than hockey sticks. (I won't make a cheap Morgentaler
joke.)
...
> > > I have read about that, probably in the trivia laden "Reader's Digest".
> > > It would make a great formula for building Ice Hotels and sculpture gardens.
> >
> > You read "Reader's Digest"? No wonder you're so smart.
>
> It's not like I have a subscription... It's just that you tend to find
> it in toilets (where it belongs)... and I happen to have found one of
> their books of "Strange Stories, Amazing Facts &tc"... actually quite
> interesting if you only have 45 seconds reading time...
I can't be snarky here as I have some Reader's Digest material myself.
For instance, there's a songbook designed for family fun, but the
guitar-fingering they propose is needlessly difficult. Watch gramps
break his wrist while trying to go from an Ab diminished with a G to
C9 playing Bye Bye Blackbird. But I like to attempt their chord
changes just to see where my mistakes lead.
> > > > * And Oak Island, my favourite buried treasure story:
> > > > http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Nova_Scotia/oakisland.htm
> > >
> > > It is an interesting story, but probably there never was any treasure.
> >
> > That sort question mark makes the story interesting. But the so-called
> > "Money Pit" is such an elaborate and sophisticated engineering feat it
> > presumably was constructed in the service of something deemed
> > important.
>
> ....
>
> I've probably read most of the same material you have but I'm inclined
> to doubt nearly all of the early stories. I think the "water trap",
> being that it occurs below the water level, is a natural phenomenon.
If the water trap were artificial, it would still occur below water
level, otherwise there would be needed a pumping system to draw the
water up.
> It looks to me like a long game of "telephone"... distortion on top of
> exaggeration on top of lie with an overlay of fervent hope.
I'm not predisposed to either side, as both theories produce a set of
riddles. So I suspend an opinion for now, except to say the basic
fantasy of the "booby-trap" isn't very sensible. Why would anyone
guard a treasure with a mechanism that makes the treasure utterly
irretrievable? It would be like Fort Knox having a trigger to destroy
its gold if its security is breached.
> This Skeptical Inquirer article goes some way towards debunking the
> mystery.
>
> http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-03/i-files.html
The Oak Island system could well be all natural phenomena and the
story a great case of people seeing what they wish to see, but
Nickell's article does little to sway the argument, I thought. The
most interesting bits, those that argue the site was produced by
natural phenomena, all seem to have been copped from a Smithsonian
article by Douglas Preston. Basically Preston is saying that
sink-holes sucked man-made materials deep into the earth, and dragged
down and buried trees to create the illusions of platforms. Of course
the rule of thumb concerning mysteries is that the prosaic explanation
is the correct one, but this sink-hole hypothesis seems contrived,
reminiscent of the desperate rationalist explanations with which
Charles Fort used to have sport.
Worse, though, Nickell brushes aside the "flood tunnel" theory without
even addressing the claims of the excavators. The syndicate that was
digging in 1850 located off the NE coast drains with a multi-layered
filter system; and the alliance that was excavating in 1970 located
the remnants of what may have been the cofferdam used when
constructing the filter bed. (Another flood tunnel is suspected of
coming in through the south coast but no solid evidence of it has been
found.) The things they say they found were certainly man-made, and
this was a recent exploration, not one of the "early stories" now
beyond reach. Which isn't to say they can't be lying, but still...
These are the points Nickell needs to debunk, not frivolities like
apocryphal pulleys and secret inscriptions. Nickell's own pet theory
about a wild Masonic goose chase isn't any more factual or persuasive
than the William-of-Orange-treasure argument of Harris & McPhie (the
two engineers who wrote "The Treasure of Oak Island"), which wasn't
particularly moving either.
Lastly, something I find irritating: a sort of "guilt by association"
tactic used by Nickell and other CSICOP writers. If you want to
discount the credibility of, say, postmodernists you need only lump
them in with the usual cranks -- that is, say "such-and-such ranks
with the screwball fantasies of astrologers, faith healers,
postmodernists, and UFOlogists." So the consortiums that have
excavated Oak Island are seamlessly blended in with treasure-hunting
"dowsers, automatic writers, clairvoyants, channelers, tarot-card
readers, dream interpreters, psychic archaeologists, [etc.]," all
awaiting the "investigative approach." And the notes of the excavators
are thrown out simply because Nickell bundles them with the earlier
legend of the pulley. It's a lazy and spurious method of discrediting
the other side without actually confronting it. (Conversely, Nickell
has the ammunition do discredit this Bowdoin character, but doesn't
use it because he likes what Bowdoin says.) What can you expect from a
group that puts "COP" in its name?
> It is, at least, very interesting. I know, of course, that a final
> solution to the mystery is unlikely at this late date, and treasure even
> more so.
A solution shouldn't be impossible. If they can figure out a way to
stanch the inflow of water then they can just dig up the place. This
would be costly, though. In the 1980s, what appeared to be bore holes
in ice cover were discovered some distance off the south coast, and
these holes are thought to be connected to the second flow of water. A
rather large cofferdam would have to be constructed to contain these
holes. And if this is a man-made system, it was a major engineering
project and there should be some record of it (which would have been
uncovered long ago). This isn't an "ancient" mystery, after all. Who
knows -- it may someday be decided the work off the NE coast is
unrelated to the Money Pit. Why not a theory that the water trap was
an accidental effect of some other human activity?
In any case, it's my favourite sort of mystery story, the sort where
the answer becomes more elusive the more people try to find it.
Another story with this quality is the first edition of Robert
Graysmith's book on the West Coast Zodiac Killer. As that book
progresses, virtually every scrap of information the investigators
thought they had is cast in doubt. I understand true crime buffs have
a problem with the book, but I found it fascinating probably for the
same reason they find it flawed.
> Got a spare million dollars? We could be millionaires!
Well, give me a million dollars and I'll *guarantee* you at least one
of us will be a millionaire.
-- Parry
|
| Follow-ups: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 |
| 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 |
|