Turn and Face the Strange

Cherry

By Turlough

Thu, 02 May 2024
  • 1390 reads
19 comments
 

Turn and Face the Strange

 

Paperback, hardback, posh leather-bound

Dog-eared, well-thumbed, maybe slightly browned

A brief inscription, words of love profound

Lurking in between the leaves, a random bookmark found

 

Aladdin Sane and Hunky Dory

Bowie’s works in all their glory

On vinyl discs from years before they

Made a digital world become mandatory

 

The high street banks are off the map

To spend a penny we need an app

That ‘I promise to pay the bearer’ chap

Has lost his job, deserves a slap

 

Technology has us by the balls

So in a thousand years when duty calls

Historians discover that sod all’s

As good as what’s on cavemen’s walls

 

They’ll never see what we have seen

On our ninety-nine-inch TV screens

Only microchips and polythene

Fill the hole where civilisation’s been

 

This worldwide web is all the rage

You’ll find all you need on our homepage

But culture’s gone, it’s left the stage

As we’re welcomed along to the New Dark Age

 

Image:

My own photograph of my own vinyl copy of David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album that I bought from Scene & Heard Records in Fish Street in Leeds on the day of its release which was Thursday 19th April 1973 when I was fifteen. I’m now sixty-six and it hangs in a glass frame in pride of place on my Bulgarian living room wall. The record sleeve’s appearance was enhanced when I pasted on to it the ticket stub from when I went to see the man himself in concert at the Apollo Theatre in Renfrew Street in Glasgow on Monday 19th June 1978, the night before my Ship Stability & Stress exam at Glasgow College of Nautical Studies. Miraculously, I passed the exam but the highlight of the week, and the 1970s, was the gig. There is nothing that is produced in the world today that could ever be as precious to me as this record.

Certificate 12
Poem
Poetry in Commotion
Opinion
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by Ed Crane on

2049 a worldwide crash and virtually all records were lot because it was digitalised --- no paper It maywerll happen in the not so distant future

All those thousands of photos we can take for free on smartphones and digital camera --- where are they? No one is printing them now family lives of millions lost on lost chips

Photographs on paper ----- the new antique collectables 2055 

 

Submitted by Turlough on

That's exactly what concerns me. A few generations on from now nobody will know anything at all about us. 

To help overcome this, I suggest that future ABC Tales business is conducted on parchment with a pot of ink and a feather.

Thanks very much for reading and your interesting comment. I've never seen (or read?) Blade Runner. Perhaps I should... perhaps I shouldn't.

Turlough

Submitted by Ed Crane on

The two films blade runner and blade runner 49 are a bit of an aquired taste. The first leads on to the second  but strangly the second takes more from the book  (imo) tge films were made about 30years apart 

the book the films are taken from is called 

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick 

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Science fiction has never been my cuppa but you've whetted my appetite a bit with this so perhaps I'll investigate further.

Many thanks for that.

Turlough

Submitted by marandina on

"Aladdin Sane and Hunky Dory

Bowie’s works in all their glory.."

A pensive, thoughtful poem. Speculative is good. Makes us all think so nicely done, Turlough.

I like the sound of ninety-nine inch TV screens. The footie would look awesome.

A remarkable man - Bowie. Saw him live in Cardiff once - Glass Spider Tour. Took some mates and drove there from Birmingham in my yellow Morris Marina Estate. It fell apart a few weeks later. I'm sure it was the trip to Wales that led to its demise.

[Blade Runner is one of my favourite movies. Ridley Scott at his genius best.]

 

Submitted by Turlough on

I'm pleased that I can boast that I once saw David Bowie but disappointed in myself that I only once saw David Bowie. I've seen a film of the Glass Spider Tour so I envy you Paul.

I'm sure it won't be long before there are virtual versions of yellow Morris Marina Estates and Wales.

Thank you very much for the reading of, the comment and the cherries.

Turlough

Submitted by seashore on

Reminds me of Julia or Sarah - maybe both. Julia had the vinyl copy for sure. Bowie and wife 1 lived a street away from where Sarah lives now.

Those were the days pre the advanced technology we struggle with in the 21st century.

Submitted by Turlough on

Julia and I used to talk a lot about David Bowie. Where we worked they arranged a trip to see him perform at the Milton Keynes Bowl. It was part of his Serious Moonlight Tour. I wonder why we didn't go. Big regret!

The only consolation that I take from 21st century technology is that I just about get by and that I won't have a struggle with 22nd century technology... even if there is some.

I used to live just round the corner from the Nolan Sisters in Ilford. Cool or wot?

Turlough

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

All this technology which is supposed to make life easy is leaving us incredibly vulnerable. There's something comforting about vinyl, you can hold it like a photograph and money too. The replacement of the physical with the virtual makes us feel less real and more powerless. I'm sure David would have something wiser than me to say about it.

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Books, records (including CDs) and money you can touch are fabulous things with their own feel, smell and character. I could never feel emotional about a mobile phone.

As for David Bowie, when he was talking to Jeremy Paxman about the internet on BBC's Newsnight in 1999 he said,'I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg...I think we’re actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying. It’s an alien life form, is there life on Mars? Yes, it’s just landed here,"

But long before that, in 1973, the lyrics of Drive-In Saturday included the words 'cursing at the astronet' which is something I do myself regularly.

The lad knew his stuff.

Turlough

Submitted by Nolan on

From your poem, “Historians discover that sod all’s as good as what’s on cavemen’s walls". The poem is prophetic but I think the final end will be long before that..

The Dark Ages may return on the gleaming wings of Science – Churchill

(Not a Bowie man myself, just the knife, yes that is a work of art).

Keep well & Nolan

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Many thanks for that Nolan.

Turlough

Submitted by Nolan on

Congrats with the cherries!

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

Ah - but without all this technology, you wouldn't be able to give us the pleasure of hearing you read on May 18th (without an expensive flight and a lot more faff). I will send the ABCTales carriage next time if you prefer though?

David Bowie was and is one of my heroes and I also still have that album tucked away somewhere - what a chameleon he was

there's a really interesting book about the time Bowie lived in ..Beckford? Haddenham Hall? (can't remember exactly) - he had a little army of local teenage girls who used to hang around there and he sort of adopted them - one of them grew up to be an author - it's a good read and one you might enjoy!

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Ah now, I'm not against new things that technology gives us provided that they don't make old things that we love become obsolete. So Zoom meetings are grand. 

The book you mentioned about Mr B sounds very interesting. I haven't read enough about him. When I lived in England I had no spare time for reading and now that I do have the time I don't have access to an English language bookshop and UK Amazon etc. is broken for us now because of Brexit. I'll have to write a shopping list before I make my next trip over there. I appreciate your reading matter tips so thank you for that.

Turlough

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

You hit the nail on the head with this poem Turlough. Well I think you know my feelings on the subject of technology. 

I saw David Bowie at the Colston Hall in Bristol in the very early 1970s. He just sat crosslegged on the stage playing his guitar, wearing loons and a teashirt...all very simple back then. I still listen to my Hunky Dory vinyl and think of that night. 

I still write with pen and paper and keep books of my writing. I still also use pen and paper when writing to people too. I don't send e mails unless I have no other option. I do so struggle with this ever changing world, where learning is so difficult to keep up with. I just wish it would all slow down.

I'm just so glad I was there in the 50s  60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Those incredible memories may not be remembered by the future generations, but I will take them happily to my grave.

Great read Turlough. smiley

Jenny.

 

Submitted by Turlough on

The David Bowie gig you went to must have been amazing. He must have been doing his 'The Man Who Sold the World' sort of stuff which is a wonderful album deserving far more credit than it ever got.  I don't know anyone else who ever saw him in his pre glam rock days. I have a story about my vinyl copy of Hunky Dory which makes it particularly special and which no CD or download could ever match. You've prompted me to add it to the list of things I need to write about.

The latter half of the twentieth century, I agree, was an absolute golden age, particularly in terms of popular culture. If I had had a choice about when I wanted to be alive that is the very time I would have picked so I consider myself very fortunate.

And there's no feeling in the world like that when you write on a piece of paper with a pen, especially if it's a brand new notebook or diary and a fountain pen. 

Many thanks Jenny. In writing this poem I have realised that I am certainly not alone in my fears and grumbles.

Turlough

Submitted by celticman on

ah, memories. I never quite got the Bowie thing. But hey, he's had his day in the sun. Now he's in Bulgaria, hanging on a wall. 

 

Submitted by Turlough on

He once sang...

I, I can remember (I remember)
Standing, by the wall (by the wall)

I wonder if he meant my living room wall.

Turlough