I spend more time outside during Autumn and Winter then I do during the Spring or Summer.
Something about a dark sky filled with black clouds or stars and something about feeling that bite in the air that makes me squint not in pain but expectation excites me and then it makes me smile from ear to ear.
I think at those times I look like a skull, sitting on a shelf in a lab hiding in the basement of a castle or a morgue that nobody goes into unless they’re cursed and lack a pulse.
Title: Skull Creator: Inca culture Location: Machu Picchu Provenance: Machu Picchu Rights: Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco. UNSAAC Cultura/Estilo: Inca
Some of my ‘memories that pop up on my FB newsfeed are more satisfying brushes with the past then other. For instance,this came through from a Halloween group that I belong to and it was a memory for an album that my Dad broke out for us when we were little.
The album was five or six years old ( 1969-70) when he gave it to me- which was about 5 years after it’s release date. I’m not sure where he got it from, but there was a big build up for when he played it for the first time with us.
It was the day before Halloween.
After we had finished dinner, instead of turning the tv on, Dad lit a fire in the fire place and told us to come in. Me and my brother and little sister and our dog Blackie plopped ourselves in from of the stereo and for the first time ( but not last ) we heard a Halloween ambiance record.
I can’t tell you what it was like for my brother and sister, but it must have been intense because they got scared a few tracks in and ran into our playroom and slammed the door shut.
Me and Blackie sat there in front of the record player, while the night shadows raced around the living room driven into a frenzy, driven on by the flames in our fireplace and the crackling logs.
The pictures that came into my head with each track should have given me nightmares.
Instead when I went to sleep that night I’m pretty sure I had a smile on my face that stretched from ear to ear-just like the ones on our freshly carved Halloween Pumpkins downstairs.
00:00 – The Haunted House 02:59 – The Very Long Fuse 04:26 – The Dogs 05:38 – Timber 07:23 – Your Pet Cat 08:12 – Shipwreck 09:50 – The Unsafe Bridge 11:09 – Chinese Water Torture 13:10 – The Birds 13:56 – The Martian Monsters 15:34 – Screams And Groans 16:31 – Thunder, Lightning And Rain 18:31 – Cat Fight 19:08 – Dogs 19:56 – A Collection Of Creaks 21:49 – Fuses And Explosions 22:59 – A Collection Of Crashes 23:44 – Birds 24:17 – Drips And Splashes 25:34 – Things In Space
