Mirror Poem Reflection on Personal and Cultural Introspection

Since 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections was published Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has travelled Scandinavia for a Channel 4 documentary series. In the Denmark episode he interviewed Soren Malling, star of The Killing and Borgen, and asked him about the contrasting image of Denmark as the happiest country in the world and the dark side shown in Nordic Noir fiction. The episode is on YouTube: 

Romantic Poet to Shock Rocker 

Copenhagen, Denmark, 2013 (Photo credit: tango-)

The impression given by Malling and Fearnley-Whittingstall was that they thought it was healthy for a society to investigate and discuss the negative sides of their collective cultural psyche, and that it was probably their free press and open thought tradition that made Denmark one of the most free and progressive countries in the world.

Poetry also does this of course, including my human parallel, legendary Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Yes, regular readers will probably have guessed that it’s the greenYgrey poetry correspondent, William Wolfsworth.

This search for truth and meaning is often done in music too, and one of the most innovative and legendary proponents of self-analysis and exposition is Alice Cooper.

Mirror Poem Reflection

Alice Does Alice album cover

So, after Marc Latham’s first poetry collection had bipolarity in the title, Alice Cooper’s greenYgrey Alice Does Alice album cover showing his two sides reflecting each other seemed a good topic for a Halloween Folding Mirror poem in October 2010.

It was first published on fmpoetry.wordpress.com, and then in 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections along with…

Reflection 14:

The mirror image of personality and humanity has been a regular theme in Folding Mirror poetry. Vincent Furnier‘s Alice Cooper alter-ego allows him to investigate and release his internal demons; demons that once sent him into alcoholism and a sanatorium.

Societies that have the freedom to analyse and criticise themselves, with a free press and human rights, should be healthier in the same way as Furnier is now, while societies that do not have the same reflection and release will probably grow more demonic.

No More Blue-Sky Banking: Lloyds Bank Rebrands to Greenygrey

Hi, it’s Wolf Whitzer, with a Greenygrey News (GGN) newsflash, satirical comedy in the style of Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Lloyds bank used to have a blue-sky logo and brand, but after the banking crash it seems to have rebranded to a more realistic greenygrey logo brand.

Lloyds Bank Blue Sky Logo

Until last September the old Lloyds bank logo used to feature a black horse in front of a greenyblue background, as shown in this image:

Lloyds Bank Greenygrey Logo

Perhaps in an effort to provide a more reassuring and trustworthy image after the banking crash, Lloyds bank has now gone greenygrey:

The Greenygrey was not involved in the rebranding. It was done by Rufus Leonard, RKRC/Y&R, Proximity and MEC according to the drum.com website.

Moments that Matter

The website also contained the Lloyds advert for the marketing campaign, which is also available on YouTube, and is copied below (notice the greenygrey cover and the double letter strapline, althought its MM rather than GG!):

We hope that Lloyds lives up to the greenygrey brand.

AC/DC and Rose Tattoo Fantasy Super Group Poems

Hi, it’s Greenygrey. It’s midweek, more or less, give or take an hour or two, comme ci comme ca, half the week passed so far. So I think it’s an ideal time to spring another episode of our favourite werewolf travels Australia to a Wizard of Oz theme; especially as spring is knocking on the door of the northern hemisphere.

Oz: Great Powerful Australia Holiday Prize Draw

Talking of Wizard of Oz, the new Sam Raimi Oz prequel: Oz: the Great and Powerful is nearing release, and in another uncanny crossing of yellow brick roads – dust sandy paths with our Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Maps book, Vue cinemas in the UK is offering entry into a prize draw for a family holiday to, guess where… yes, Australia!, if you book online.

Terms and conditions apply, but it looks like you just have to book a ticket online to see the Oz: the Great and Powerful.

The Greenygrey is just passing this information on to you, and has no involvement with Oz: the Great and Powerful or Vue cinemas.

Poem Created from Rose Tattoo Song Titles

Now on with the show. And what a show we have for you today, with the newly bolstered travelling tribe celebrating their reunification; the genesis of an AC/DC and Rose Tattoo super-group and two loopy literary nonsense poems.

The first poem is made up of Rose Tattoo later album song titles, with the band continuing to create great music. One of my favourite newer songs isn’t  featured in the poem, and a YouTube search for it just now brought another greenygrey find, with Rose Tattoo looking greenygreyesque while supporting Slash last year. Here’s the video of 1854, before the 52nd episode of the Werewolf of Oz: yep, that’s as many episodes as there are weeks in the year:

52.  AB/DC IS BORN

I introduced Angry to everybody, and we had a fantastic feast that night. It was also our last night on Kangaroo Island, as we decided during the meal that we needed to get rambling again. We told our hosts.

AB/DC is Born 

Bagpipe (Photo credit: pipebär)

Angry fitted in well, and seemed to enjoy himself; even singing a few songs toward the end of the night. Bonzo played the bagpipes for one of Angry’s songs, and Elle danced wildly to the jolly tune. Everybody and everything seemed entranced by the music and dancing, and especially ol’ Scoty.

Elle later said she’d enjoyed the music so much that she hoped there would be more when we returned to the road. She thought Angry and Bonzo gelled so well together they should form a band, and suggested Angry Bonzo / Dandelion Cordial would be a good name.

Rose Tattoo

Everybody agreed it was a wonderful choice. Angry added that it could be called AB/DC for short, and everybody thought that was another great idea; and good use of Angry’s mind. At the end of the night, Angry said he felt like we were:

Blood Brothers and Sisters
Slipping Away from the City Blues
on a Once in a Lifetime opportunity
with Nothing to Lose.

The music also made me feel creative, so I wrote a little ditty of my own before retiring to bed. And here it is:

With a musical spirit
I thought we’d make it
we had the body and mind
sung our troubles behind
more adventures to come
maybe somebody’s gonna drum.

—————————————————————————————————-

Notes

Rose Tattoo songs: Blood Brothers, Slipping Away, City Blues, Once in a Lifetime, Nothing to Lose.

—————————————————————————————————-

Twinings Tea Advert Divides Greenygrey Media Theory

Hi, it’s Harry Silhouetteof-Wolfhowlingonhill, television correspondent at the Greenygrey. I had a great advert to review this week, reminding me so much of Greenygrey’s rambles. Moreover, the Twinings tea advert is available on YouTube.

Twinings Tea Advert

Twinings Tea Twins 

First of all, let’s look at the Twinings name, which reminds me of Green and Grey, who are like twins when apart.

Then the advert has a woman making her way through greenygrey, in what the top comment on YouTube describes as beautiful animation.

Divided Person Finds Herself

The woman then emerges onto a mountain peak, where she is helped up by another her, with the strapline: gets you back to you.

That reminded me of Grey returning to Green, after Green helped Grey along the way a couple of times, as told in Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Maps.

Green and Grey Fields of Greenygreyism

The only controversy is the role played by greenygrey at the start of the advert.

The Green field of Greenygreyist media theory argues that the greenygrey is helping the woman climb her mountain, while the Grey field of Greenygreyism believes that the woman is escaping the greenygrey to a brighter place.

Tea Happy Ending 

There is a happy ending anyway, with the hills and mountains visible from her tea-drinking peak a more subtle mixing of greenygrey.

Swans of Fighting Grace All Watched Over

Hi, it’s Greenygrey. Sorry, yesterday I/we got a little mixed up in our blog, and ended up rushing one out from amongst quite a few ideas and a big amount of text. The young wolves should have been called pups or whelps; ‘her’ cubs/pups should have been ‘their’ (proof of my male mind leaving child-rearing to the women for eagle-eyed feminists?); and the title of the Adam Curtis documentary should have been All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace, rather than All Watched Over By Loving Machines. The three-part documentary is on Vimeo, and an interview with Adam Curtis about the series (that I/we haven’t watched yet) is on YouTube.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Describing Swan Fight without Prejudice

Funnily enough, when I/we went out I/we saw two swans ‘fighting’, like many humans were probably fighting that Saturday around the world; I/we guessed it was two males over a watching female, but that could be presumptuous, and show signs of sexism or homophobia.

I/We thought I/we might be safe mentioning their colour, but have thought twice about it, what with me/us being greenygrey. They did look beautiful from afar, as if dancing in the sun with necks entwined. It was only when I/we got closer that I/we saw they were actually biting each other, with feathers flying, showing how initial looks can be deceiving… and how even nice swans are not that different to demonised wolves… or humans.

Swan Fight 4 (Photo credit: Fulla T)

We were going to have another thrilling episode of Werewolf of Oz, but have just run out of time, so it’ll have to wait ’til tomorrow. Until then…

Devil is only as Old as Medieval Art, Evil is Eternal

Hi, it’s Harry Silhouetteof-Wolfhowlingonhill, TV critic at the Greenygrey. Living in a werewolf world at Halloween time I’m sure you won’t be surprised to read that I was intrigued by the BBC documentary: How the Devil Got His Horns: A Diabolical Tale. 

Devil Image Created in Medieval Art

In the documentary, art historian and critic Alastair Sooke first told us that the Devil is not in the bible, and that it was added to the Christian doctrine centuries afterwards.

Pan (Photo credit: Duncan~)

Sooke then took us on a journey through the Middle Ages showing how the devil’s image developed from an angelic rebellious Lucifer to the diabolically cruel Devil through several Medieval paintings.

Sooke thought that old pagan symbols, which pre-date Christianity, such as Pan and Satyr, were the inspirations for the ‘new image’ of Lucifer the Devil.

Marc Latham at Mont-Saint-Michel

Those who might seek to demonise Marc Latham as some kind of devil because he is a neo-pagan with witchy looks might have been surprised that the sky cleared when he visited Mont-Saint-Michel. As shown in his new photo album.

Those who’ve grown up on Omen films might have predicted a natural disaster, or at least a greying of the skies, in line with us at the Greenygrey.

But while the skies were grey when Marc arrived, they cleared after Marc enjoyed a beautiful communion service in the centuries-old abbey. So maybe Marc is a sky-clearer rather than a cloud-causer.

Human Good and Evil, not God and Devil

As Marc wrote with his new Folding Mirror poem yesterday, it is the truth-hiding, witch-burning and warmongering aspects of religion he dislikes. I talked to Marc about it this very morning, and he said he is totally at ease with religions that don’t spread war, brainwash and control people, and destroy the environment.

English: Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition, painting by Cristiano Banti (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After criminal acts done in the name of Christ, whom Marc likes as an historical figure, such as the persecution of Galileo to hide the truth about the real relationship between Sun and Earth, disproving centuries of Christian teaching; and the use of torture to convert and control; Marc thinks Christianity is now benign in most places in the world.

Marc would also like to add that it’s not only religion that is at fault. There are unfortunately people who still think there is some power to be gained by using human and animal body parts in witchcraft and medicine, and people and animals are being hunted and killed to feed the industry.

Ross Kemp (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Recently, both sides of this horror were  graphically shown in Ross Kemp‘s Extreme Worlds documentary, where Kemp found some people being mutilated and killed for witchcraft because they are thought to have special powers, and villagers being burned alive by vigilantes, with the rest of the village watching.

It is on YouTube if you want to watch it.

Celebrity Big Brother Wolfophobia Works, Video Killed the Loris

Hi, it’s Harry Silhouetteof-Wolfhowlingonthehill. I thought our Andy Wolfhol was taken artistic license when he complained about wolfophobia on last week’s Celebrity Big Brother, where they had tasks with a fairy tale theme. These included a big bad wolf in Red Riding Hood and Three Little Pigs.

Wolfophobia from Show to Contestant

But on Tuesday’s highlights, one of the twins (Kristina I think) was talking about Denise in an negative way, and said she was like the big bad wolf. I doubt if she’d have thought of that analogy before the task, but about two weeks later it was still resonating in her mind when she was looking for a negative description. I hope you haven’t been affected in a similar way.

Video and Human Kindness Killed the Slow Loris

I watched a sad Natural World documentary on the BBC last night about the slow loris’s struggle to survive extinction. While humanity is largely to blame, it is mainly through kindness and empathy. They are very cute animals, like us werewolves, and when someone put a video of one being tickled up on YouTube it went viral, and then lots of people wanted one as a pet.

That was where the kindness ended, and callous greed took over. Many were taken out of the wild, and died while being transported in small suffocating cages. Others had their sharp teeth pulled out with pliers.

They are predators, and can have damaging fights with each other, but the biggest danger to their survival is the global demand for them as pets.

It’s available until 14th March in the UK on the Natural World link above or BBC address below. Don’t know about other availability. http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01bcp7z/

How Wolves Became Dogs: Fox Evolution

Hi, it’s Harry Silhouetteof-Wolfhowlingonthehill. Yesterday I discussed a video showing a wolf in the house, and how an experiment showed it could not be trained like a dog. Although dogs and wolves are 99.8% genetically similar, nurturing pups from five days old did not work. The wolves acted wild by eight weeks old, and did not take notice of commands like the dog pups they were compared to.

How Wolves Became Dogs

While wolves could not be nurtured from young, a Siberian experiment may explain how wolves turned into dogs over many generations. Silver foxes were selected for their tameness – showing no fear or aggression towards humans. Only 1% of the candidates were chosen. They were then bred together.

Within three generations over fifty years, the ‘tame’ bred foxes were affectionate towards humans. They were described as perfect pets: independent as cats, devoted as dogs.

Not only was their behaviour ideal, but their physical appearance also changed to appeal to humans. Their tails became curly, their floppy ears lasted longer when young, their limbs and tails became shorter than their wild counterparts. Basically, they came to look more like dogs. An example of evolution working over a short period of time?

Main Point of the last Two Blogs

While the BBC’s Horizon: Secret Life of Dogs documentary provides a lot of fascinating information, the main point of bringing it into the Greenygrey world was to show that wolves are not the demons of fairy tales. They are just dogs that have not been domesticated.

Here’s the video:

Niagara Falls Video has Exciting New Greenygrey Evidence

Image via Wikipedia

Hi, it’s Harry Silhouetteof-Wolfhowlingonthehill, video and television expert here at the Greenygrey.

I was just browsing Youtube and came across a great piece of Greenygrey evidence in this Niagara Falls video:

The Water is Multi-Coloured: Green and Grey

Although, at first, inexperienced Greenygreyologists might think that the main greenygrey evidence is in the grey river in the foreground, and the green trees in the background, if you look closely at the river, there is some green in it.

And that is only the precursor to the main event though, because as the water cascades over the Niagara Falls it turns from grey to green.

It seems quite amazing that it is the same water, but changes colour between green and grey…well, it does to me anyway.

Blue Black Permanent by Margaret Tait gets Wolfgang in State

Image via Wikipedia

Hi, it’s Wolfgang.  You know, sometimes I think I’m going potty with all this rambling on about greenygrey research and blogging.

Blue Black Permanent by Margaret Tait

But then the other night I saw there was a film on called Blue Black Permanent, and the colour combination in the title of course caught my attention.

And you know what, it didn’t disappoint, because accomplished poet and film-maker, the late Margaret Tait, included a lot of footage depicting blue and black imagery: like bluish pebbles on the beach combined with black seaweed.

Correlations with the Greenygrey

It was also just after we received lots of greenygrey evidence from the Yorkshire coast, including grey stones combined with green seaweed.

As regular visitors and readers will know, we have now made into a YouTube film of the Cleveland Way walk from Scarborough to Robin Hood’s Bay.

Lost Civilisation of Werewolves?

So while we see a greenygrey world, maybe Margaret Tait saw it in blueyblack.  And we’re not all crazy in the greenygrey world, we think the same as other people, but just see it differently!?

Or maybe there was a lost civilisation of blueyblack werewolves?  That (multi-theory) is the greenygrey (see literature) of it!

Maybe it will take a place in the Greenygrey psyche and world like the Lost City of Atlantis does in the human…leading to lots more theories…and books…and more questions…than answers?