#Iain Sinclair

[dynamobooks]

Arthur Conan Doyle: A Study in Scarlet (1887)

[dare-g]

Books 31-40 of 2023 📖!

[rozmorris]

Nothing new under the sun? Why originality is always possible

Here’s something to think about. Around 97% of the time you ever spend with your parents will be before you are 18 years old. Maybe you’ve already heard this statistic, and apparently there’s more than one variation. But I heard it just this week. Dave heard it first, told me.   We boggled. Then, after a moment’s marvelling, we thought about it properly. Of course. That period 0-18 is so…

[downthetubes]

COMICA’s 20th anniversary lineup unveiled

An amazing lineup of comic creatives celebrate COMICA’s 20th anniversary next month in London, including Lucie Arnoux, Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, Armando Iannucci, Dave McKean, Martin Rowson, Posy Simmonds, Lucy Sullivan and more

The full lineup of comic creators for Comica, The London Comics Festival, at The Century Club taking place in March has been announced, and includes appearances by Lucie Arnoux, Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, Armando Iannucci, Dave McKean, Martin Rowson, Posy Simmonds, Lucy Sullivan and more. Marking the 20th Anniversary of London’s long-running Comica Festival, and in association with VIP Brands…

[d834256]

Iain Sinclair, "London Orbital".

[neruomancer]

I have just started listening to 33.3 FM in the last month so Unknown Armies has been on the brain a lot lately. Something I have always wanted to do and maybe it is a terrible hair brained idea but an Unknown Armies - Cthulhu Mythos settings sounds really interesting to me.

One of the Campaign frames for Trail of Cthulhu for the Bookhounds of London described it as "Unknown Armies meets Iain Sinclair or James Ellroy" and that image was so emotionally interesting to me. Later reading Bookhounds of London and expanding more on the feeling of what they called idiosyncratic magick, basically gutter magick from UA but in the frame of reference of the unnatural in the mythos was very interesting to me.

There was another part in Trail where it was said that the great old ones or any general alien horror in terms of human occult understandimg even if flawed, assigned values to the great old ones as physical incarcerations of fundamental forces in space-time. Cthulhu is gravity, Hastur is radioactive decay, etc

The Invisible Clergy is not taking place in the stratosphere but taking place in the Court of Azathoth, God-walkers have become such twisted alien things matching the archetypes of the great old ones. The great old ones are manipulating the collective unconscious to invent themselves into physical reality by rewriting reality into something that would allow something so horrid and alien.

You could take it another step further and include the outer dark from Esorerrorists and have a "occult underground" of "adepts" who are trying to invent or manifest fictional alien occult horrors from the unconscious into flesh or material.

Probably wouldn't fit that well and kind of comes across as very fanfic ish which I don't really like but it has been something I have thought about a lot.

[laiqualaurelote]

tagged by: @sagiow (thank you and happy birthday!)

last song: Too Darn Hot by Ella Fitzgerald, though I will take any excuse to mention Ann Miller’s spectacular tap-dancing number from Kiss Me Kate 

currently watching: Ted Lasso (again), for fic reasons. I don’t watch a lot of TV because I haven’t got much time for it. The last non-Ted Lasso show I saw was American-Born Chinese, which I have a lot of thoughts about so please come yell at me if you want to hear about Chinese mythology, the nuances between different Chinese accents and the sheer unadulterated excellence of Yeo Yann Yann

currently reading: I read multiple books at once - I’m presently in the middle of London Orbital, Iain Sinclair’s account of walking around the M25 (great for him, I’m glad he did it so nobody else has to); I have just finished Natascha Bruce’s translation of Owlish by Dorothy Tse, a dark fable set in a phantasmagorical version of Hong Kong; and I am starting The House Of Doors by Tan Twan Eng, about a murder case in 1920s Penang

current obsession: Ted Lasso, Shakespeare and art in the apocalypse for all the men and women merely players, an object lesson in how the most random one-off ideas can balloon into ridiculous epics that have you tearing your hair out over rereading the Henriad and researching Manchester tunnel networks

tagging: @swallowtailed, @kiraziwrites, @eisoj5, @justplainsalty, @nagia-pronounced-neijia and anybody else who’d like to do it

[therivershit]

The Cardinal & the Corpse by Chris Petit & Iain Sinclair, 1992

[dynamobooks]

smoky man (ed.): Alan Moore: Portraits of an Extraordinary Gentleman (2023)

[dare-g]

The Falconer (1998)

[werkboileddown]

[virtualmemoriespodcast]

Episode 576 - Aaron Lange

What is the meaning of Cleveland? Cartoonist Aaron Lange joins the show to talk about Peter Laughner & Proto-Punk In The Secret City (Stone Church Press), his breathtaking new graphic novel that weaves together obscure records, urban legends and psychographic history. We talk about Aaron's fascination with Cleveland's punk scene, why the musician Peter Laughner stood out to him, the way Cleveland's hidden landmarks pointed him toward this massive project. We get into the research and interviews Aaron conducted for Ain't It Fun, the process of editing this work into a looping, flaneur-like, discursive (but never aimless) narrative, and the influence of Greil Marcus' Lipstick Traces, Iain Sinclair's Lud Heat, and Adam Curtis' documentaries. We also discuss post-Laughner Pere Ubu, using graphic design rather than panel-to-panel cartooning, visiting the zodiac circle by the Cleveland Museum of Art at all 4 equinoxes, chronicling the city's brutalist architecture, the constraints of the comics market on a book that defies easy description, and a lot more. Follow Aaron on Instagram and support Stone Church Press via Patreon (which doubles as Aaron's blog) • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

Check out the new episode of The Virtual Memories Show

[ladoescurodalua]

Mountain stream

by Iain Sinclair-MacDonald

[scotianostra]

On November 15th 1746, James Reid was executed at York for being a part of the Jacobite uprising.

Reid, a native of Angus, was among many Jacobites captured at Carlisle  and as per usual dates are a bit iffy with this post.

The following is an extract from Grattan Flood’s Story of the Bagpipe. “So powerful a factor was the Scotch bagpipe in working up enthusiasm for the Stuart cause that it was regarded as an instrument of war. This point is amply proved by the fact that James Reid, a Scotch piper, was tried at York for high treason, the capital offence being that as no Highland Regiment ever marched without a piper; therefore, his bagpipe in the eye of the law was an instrument of war.

“Reid suffered death at York on November 6, 1746, as is reported in the contemporary Caledonian Mercury.”

On checking this information in the National Library [in Edinburgh] it was noted that this information was given in the Caledonian Mercury of November 25, 1746. The following is the extract:

“On Saturday 15th James Reid was executed for high treason at York. He was of the Shire of Angus and a private man in Lord Ogilvy’s regiment”.

Lord Ogilvy was only 21 years old and commanded two battalions. He had held a commission in the French Army and was very popular with his men. The Angus men were supposed to be the best equipped and according to some accounts the best disciplined in the Prince’s army. They kept the retreating right wing at Culloden from being cut to pieces. Lord Ogilvy escaped to France via Norway and became a general in the French army. He eventually regained his estates. He died in 1803.

In the three volumes of Prisoners of The ’45 by Sir Bruce Seton and Jean Gordon Arnot (published in 1929) there are several hundred names of soldiers of Charles Edward Stuart. Some of the pipers listed are as follows:

John Sinclair. Piper in Ogilvy’s regiment. Town piper of Arbroath. Discharged March 4, 1747.

John Ballantyne. Piper in Lord George Murray’s regiment. Taken at Carlisle. Tried at York on October 2, 1746 and acquitted.

Nicholas Carr. Piper in Glenbucket’s regiment; acquitted October 1746.

Robert Jamieson. Piper in the Duke of Perth’s regiment; captured at Carlisle and transported.

Allan MacDougall of Duke of Atholl’s and Lord Nairn’s regiments; served as a blind Highland piper and was taken at Falkirk. He was pardoned in 1747. What a blind man could do in an army had only one reason. He must have been an exceptionally talented and well known piper. Could this have been Blind MacDougall mentioned in Angus MacKay’s MS? His name is associated with the following tunes: The King’s Taxes, Farewell Donald, Lament For Captain MacDougall, the Nameless tune (Book 4 of the Piobaireachd Society Collection (three Nameless tunes are shown but which one is MacDougalls is not clear), Cumha Iain Cheir, The Duke of Perth’s Lament and Lachlan MacNeill of Kintarbert. Angus MacKay states that this MacDougall is Ronald MacDougall and it is not likely that there are two blind MacDougalls. It could be reasonable to assume that this blind MacDougall piper is the same man.

And the main subject of this post;

James Reid. Piper in Ogilvy’s regiment. Executed York on November 15, 1746. The relevant entry is:

2800. Reid, James. Piper, Ogilvy’s. 30.12.45 Carlisle; Lancaster Castle, York. Executed York 15/11/46. Angus. Taken at capture of Carlisle. It was pointed out at his trial at York on 2nd Oct. that he was only a piper, but he was found guilty but recommended to mercy. Nevertheless he was executed. The Court ruled that ‘no regiment ever marched without musical instruments such as drums, trumpets and the like; and that a Highland regiment never marched without a piper; and therefore his bagpipe, in the eye of the law, was an instrument of war.” – Baga, lxix. 193; S.P.D., 79-26, 91-77.

Also listed were several drummers and fiddlers.

Manson, in his book The Highland Bagpipe, states that Charles Edward had 32 pipers playing before his tent at meal times. The relevant papers a decisions about hanging Reid have been checked up in the [National] Library in Edinburgh and in London and I have yet to find any government decision to hang rebel pipers. James Reid was not the only piper – he was just the unlucky one as the rest got off or were transported.

It would appear that the decision to hang Reid was made by the court at York in isolation and not under any official directive. There is little record of pipers being harassed, imprisoned, or hanged for playing the pipes after the ’45 and we know that Joseph MacDonald compiled his Compleat Theory of the Scots Highland Bagpipe in 1760, 14 years after the troubles. It would be reasonable to assume that piping did not suffer unduly.

James Reid must be unique in piping history as the only one who lost his life because he was a piper.

Black Watch museum in Perth also hold information on Jacobite prisoners, including James Reid, they appear to records taken directly from the hearings;

“John Porteous was tried next, who appeared to be Deferter from one of our Regiments: He alledged, in Excufe of his Offence, and as a Plea to ftop Sentence, that he had the Promife of his Royal Highnefs the Duke of Cumberland for his Pardon – Guilty.

“James Reid was then tried, whom the Witneffes for the Crown plainly proved to have engaged with the Rebels, and to have acted as a Piper to a Rebel Regiment, tho’ it did not appear that he had ever carried any Arms; upon which he was recommended to Mercy by the Jury. The Court obferved upon this, that every Perfon who joined any Set of People engaged in an open Rebellion, tho’ they did not bear Arms, they were guilty of High Treafon; that no Regiments ever marched without Mufical Inftruments, as Drums, Trumpets, or the like; and that in an Highland Regiment there was no Moving without a Piper, and therefore his Bagpipe, in the Eye of the Law, was an Inftrument of War. The Jury upon this would have retracted their Recommendation, but the Court told them, it muft not now be permitted — Guilty. Then the Court adjourned to Saturday.

“On Saturday, James Main was firft brought to the Bar; but his Counfel moving for farther Time, upon Account of fome of his Witneffes being on the Road, the Court was fo favourable, as to poftpone his Trial.

“Then John Long was brought upon his Trial, and fix Witneffes were examined for the Crown, to prove that he had acted as a Surgeon’s mate in the Rebel Army; but the Proof not coming up to the Species of High Treafon laid in the Indictment, he was acquitted on the Motion of the King’s Counfel.

“James McColley was tried next, and was proved by four Witneffes to have appeared in Arms at feveral Places: He did not attempt to contradict this in his Defence, but examined fome Witneffes to fhew that his Cafe was the fame with Charles Robinfon’s — Guilty.”

In total there were 22 Jacobites executed at York in the wake of the ‘45 Crann Tara held a commemorate event in York in their memory ib 2007, a simple stones marks where they met their end.  You can watch the commemoration on Youtube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a05QSzs_u60