Award winners

I don’t often say the movie was better than the book, but this time I believe that “Hugo” is heaps better than Brian Selznick’s “The invention of Hugo Cabret”.

In 1931, Hugo Cabret, a 12-year-old boy, lives with his widowed father, a master clockmaker in Paris. Hugo's father takes him to see films and loves the films of Georges Méliès best of all. After Hugo's father dies Hugo is taken in by his uncle, an alcoholic watchmaker who is responsible for maintaining the Gare du Nord railway station clocks.

The library

 Hugo lives between the walls of the station, maintaining the clocks, scrounging food from the vendors and working on his father's most ambitious project: repairing a broken automaton who is supposed to write with a pen. Convinced that the automaton contains a message from his father, Hugo steals mechanical parts to repair the automaton, but he is caught by toy store owner Georges Méliès who takes Hugo's notebook with notes and drawings for fixing the automaton.

Hugo meets Georges's goddaughter – Isabelle who promises to help. Méliès agrees that Hugo may earn the notebook back by working to pay for the things he stole from the shop. Hugo introduces Isabelle to the movies, while she introduces Hugo to books. Activating the automaton produces a drawing of a film scene – the first film his father ever saw (Trip to the Moon), the drawing is signed with Isabelle's godfather’s name.

Isabelle and Hugo

A book on the history of film by Rene Tabard, refers to Georges Méliès as having died in the Great War. Hugo, Isabelle and Tabard go to Georges's home to show "Trip to the Moon", Georges appears while they are watching the film, and explains how he came to make movies, invented the special effects, and how he lost faith in films when the World War I began and also believes the automaton he created was lost in the museum fire, and that there is nothing left of his life's work.

Hugo goes back to the station to get the automaton, is almost run over by a train, when the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen’s best performance) saves him and the automaton and proceeds to detain him. Hugo pleads with the officer when Georges arrives and claims that Hugo is in his care.

Absolutely amazing CGI

Finally Georges gets a tribute ceremony for his movies, Tabard announces 80 of his films have been recovered and restored. Georges thanks Hugo for his actions, and then invites the audience to "follow his dreams". Hugo becomes an apprentice of Georges and Isabelle decides to be a writer.

Paris from the station clock tower

“Hugo” won 5 Academy Awards – best cinematography, Art direction, Sound mixing, Sound editing, and Visual effects, it is the CGI that creates the wonderfully atmospheric railway station. "The invention of Hugo Cabret" also won the Caldecott Medal, and is on the Premier's Reading Challenge list too.

Brian Selznick has written both “The invention of Hugo Cabret”, and the “Hugo movie companion”.  

Game over in a grand slam

The abandoned Dunlop-Slazenger Factory in the Sydney suburb of Alexandria is an urban art gallery of graffiti.

The factory is huge, spanning two massive levels in two separate buildings, with a maze of rooms large & small.

Layers of graffiti cover every wall and surface – bright colours on the dull concrete.

Littered throughout the entire building are thousands of empty paint spray-cans in a large variety of colours.

On the upper floor, the holes in the roof create a beautiful light pattern when the sunshine filters through. The material looks like asbestos sheeting, could possibly been damaged in that hailstorm that hit Sydney in April 1999.

I'm glad I went there in October 2011, as the Dunlop-Slazenger buildings have since become the location for the redevelopment of the site as a mixed use development of residential apartments, commercial offices and retail units. So another abandoned building will bite the dust (currently listening to Queen).

Slazenger was founded by brothers Ralph & Albert Slazenger in 1881, manufacturing golf clubs in 1890, Slazenger tennis balls were first used at Wimbledon in 1902. The first Australian factories began in 1922. Slazenger acquired Dunlop in 1959. In 1963 Slazenger started its clothing line and the Panther logo.

In 1909 Dunlop entered the golf market in Birmingham England. The Australian arm began manufacturing sand-shoes in Melbourne in 1924, and the Volley in 1939. It launched the Flying D logo in 1960.

Dunlop-Slazenger sold to BTR (British Tyre & Rubber) in 1985.

Drive for real

Firstly I'm not a car nut, and would not normally check out a book on old automobiles, but I've made an exception with "Built for adventure : the classic automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt" written by Clive Cussler with photography by Ronnie Bramhall.

The 1929 Duesenberg on the cover

It is an illustrated work about Clive Cussler/Dirk Pitt's classic car collection, and includes a chapter for each of these 56 rare, classic, and antique automobiles, with text on the general history and acquisition of each vehicle (yes he did find some rusting in barns), along with glossy colour photographs of the car, and other detail ones of the dash, or engine, name plate etc.
Models include a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Touring car, Mercedes-Benz 630K, Duesenberg J-140, Cadillac V-16 Roadster, Ford Cabriolet Hot Rod, Packard V-12 and heaps more. My personal favourite was the 1933 American Austin Bantam Roadster, with the Harley bike a close second.

The Austin

The whole (larger, over 100 vehicles) collection is in The Cussler Museum in Arvada in Colorado.
Fans of Clive Cussler's bestselling Dirk Pitt series and its spin-offs, know that his hero Dirk has a soft spot for rare and classic automobiles, and that the vehicles that appear in the novels, are actually part of Cussler's own vast collection (wondering, does this make their acquisition some kind of tax deduction as a requirement for writing the book?).
I was keen on Clive's other non-fiction foray - "The sea hunters" which described Clive's searches, with the real NUMA, for historic shipwrecks, which is why I was interested to have a look at "Built for adventure".

All fired up



Side view of the Switch House with the Boiler House behind & red brick 1948 Control Room

The White Bay Power Station was built by N.S.W. Rail to provide power for Sydney's growing tram and electrified rail network, carved out of former residential land in Rozelle and reclaimed tidal flats of the Whites Creek estuary (chosen as it provided water for the turbines, and easy access to the harbour).
The 3.4 hectare site is approximately 150 metres long by 70 metres wide with a number of buildings and wings constructed in the Federation Anglo-Dutch architectural style, and two 60 metre tall chimney towers.


The 1950s Boiler House and the Turbine House

The coal-fired power station was constructed in two stages. The first stage, built between 1912 and 1917, consisted of a boiler house, and part of the turbine hall and switch house. The second stage, which commenced in 1925, saw the completion of the turbine hall and switch house.
Between 1950 and 1958, the first boiler house was demolished and replaced in two stages with the present boiler house.



The coal elevator attached to the Boiler House

 In 1953 the newly created Electricity Commission of N.S.W. took over control from the Railways. By the 1970s, demand for power from White Bay had diminished to such an extent that the second boiler house was pulled down and the turbines sold. The power station was decommissioned on 25 December 1983, but retained for emergencies, its last operational use was during the power crisis in 1984.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the power station was gradually stripped with the majority of the machinery removed, except for items identified for heritage conservation, now a massive industrial relic.

In August 2000, Pacific Power sold the White Bay Power Station to the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority. A number of proposals for its future have been put forward, but the ultimate fate of the heritage-listed site remains uncertain.
I was unable to enter the site, but the YouTube clip below gives a good view of the interior, machinery, coupled with commentary from the ex-workers.

The derelict site has been used by photographers, and in a number of movie and tv productions - The Matrix reloaded, Red planet and in Water Rats. 


Nature is taking over the Turbine House castellated parapets

Mouro to the max

Just browsing photos on the Net, and came across this one of the Mouro lighthouse by Max Billder on Pixdaus.

The Mouro Island Lighthouse or ‘Isla de Mouro’ Lighthouse is located on the island of Mouro at the entrance to the Bay of Santander, in Cantabria, northern Spain.

Built in 1860, the unpainted conical stone tower with lantern room and gallery rises from the centre of a circular single-storey stone keeper's house, an additional dwelling house is attached. It is 39 metres above sea-level and the tower is 20 metres high (do your own math on the height of the waves).

This highly exposed lighthouse was a dangerous assignment for its keepers (one was drowned by a great wave in 1865). In February 1996, a severe storm swept over the tower and extinguished the light. The original lantern was removed around 1990. In 2003-04, the lighthouse was restored and in April 2004, a new lantern installed by helicopter. The island is a restricted nature reserve only accessible by boat, with the site and tower closed.

I searched further and came across other dramatic shots on Flickr.

"Power of the storm II"

Rafael G. Riancho's wonderfully dramatic colour photograph of the lighthouse among the airborne spume of the waves. You can follow the link to Rafael's Flickr page to see the rest of this series, even the aftermath ones are spectacular as you see the wind-blown water cascading off the parapets.
Pablo Higera's stark black and white one speaks of storms and shipwrecks.

"Waves on the lighthouse"

And finally a peaceful scene of the island and silhouetted lighthouse at dawn, by Jamie Juan.

"Momento 1"

All in time for International Lighthouse Weekend 18^th and 19^th August.

Enduring photographs

'Hidden Alcatraz : the fortress revealed' is edited by Steve Fritz and Deborah Roundtree, foreword by Peter Coyote, introduction by John Martini, and afterword by Thom Sempere.

The cover image - approaching Alcatraz island

Alcatraz - infamous for its legendary inmates - is much more than its grim history.
The book focuses on the current state of the island fortress, presenting a unique collection of nearly 100 images taken over a four-year period by 34 photographers, some of whom stayed overnight in the main cell-block.
The photographs highlight the eerie, almost supernatural mood of the former prison, bringing texture to its historical artifacts and architecture and evoking the extreme isolation and despair of inmates, whose only remaining traces are scratches and graffiti on the walls - beauty in decay.
The collection is both beautiful and haunting. It captures the unique mood of this small but fabled rock anchored off San Francisco.

The Golden Gate Bridge from Alcatraz

Although the maximum security U.S. penitentiary closed in 1963, the name still conjures Hollywood-fueled images of the ghostly, fog-shrouded island squatting in the wind-swept waters of San Francisco Bay and hardened convicts behind barred widows plotting an escape.
The colour and monochrome images offer a photographic autopsy of the prison's rotting remains. Most of the small island of Alcatraz was given over to the buildings which housed 260 prisoners in cramped, cage-like cells and narrow hallways. Through the chipped paint, rusting metal, and crumbling cement, the despair, loneliness, and severity of life on 'The Rock' remains woefully present.

Images everyone associates with Alcatraz - The Cell Block

The smoke stack

To complement the photographs, the book's introduction offers a brief history of the island (its initial nearly forgotten use as a 19th-century military fort and, later as a stockade). Alcatraz was discovered and named by the Spanish in 1769. The barren rocky sandstone island possessed no vegetation or fresh water. Work began in 1853 as a government instrumentality for a lighthouse and gun-battery fort in a strategic location - the bay of San Francisco for the defence of the American Pacific Coast. The citadel fort was completed in 1859, just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. In the 1860s it was the destination for military convicts. The gun batteries were removed in 1907, and the citadel razed in 1909 for the construction of the concrete cell blocks, when the island became solely a military prison, until 1933.
In 1934 it began as a Federal  maximum-security civilian penitentiary, up until 1963 when it closed, on the orders of Robert Kennedy, due to increasing operating and maintenance costs (unless you believe the premise of the Alcatraz tv series).
In 1969 native American Indian activists seized the island claiming it as Indian land under the 1868 treaty with the Sioux Nation. They were removed in 1971. National Parks took control of the historic landmark in 1972 and opened it as a tourist attraction in 1973.



The lighthouse with the Bay Bridge behind

On the island is first lighthouse on America's Pacific shores, a light that has guided ships in and out of San Francisco Bay for almost 125 years. It was the first of a series of lighthouses on the West Coast of the United States. The foundations were laid in 1852 and the light went into service on June 1, 1854. A fog bell was installed in 1856 to combat the San Franciso fogs which often obscured the light. In the 1906 earthquake, the lighthouse tower was cracked and a chimney toppled. The present new 84' concrete tower was completed in 1909, and was automated in 1963 when the prison closed. During the Indian seizure of the island, power was cut to Alcatraz including the lighthouse, and a fire destroyed the keeper's and warden's houses. The light is still operational, but not open to the public.

Alcatraz continues to fascinate, and this photographic collection beautifully captures its physical decay.

The view from the Warden's window

The photography of music

I've just been told to lift my game in the "Now & Then" stakes!
After viewing the latest post from the WebUrbanist people - PopSpots: New York City Album Covers Now & Then.
It is a look into New York City’s past, at the locations where iconic album cover photos were taken. Photographer Bob Egan has tracked down the exact places where the photos were taken in the 1960s and 1970s and transposed the album covers onto modern-day photographs.

"After the gold rush" by Neil Young

Neil Young walking at the northwest corner of Sullivan Street and West 3rd Street, Greenwich Village in New York.

"The freewheelin' Bob Dylan"

21 year old Bob Dylan with then girlfriend Suze Rotolo on Jones Street, near West 4th and Bleecker in Greenwich Village.
“Manhattan is constantly being torn down and rebuilt anew, and I’m trying to find these places while they are still around,” says Egan. At times it can take a lot of work to identify the exact spot.
The photo of Bruce Springsteen was taken in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York on the southeast corner of Tenth Avenue and 53rd Street about a half block down and across the street from The Power Station, the recording studio where Bruce was working on "The River" album.

Bruce Springteen at Public School 111 for "The River"

Egan had to do some sleuthing to spot the exact subway platform upon which Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon stood approximately 47 years ago for the cover of "Wednesday Morning, 3AM". Several websites identified it as the platform at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, but to find the exact spot he had to look to things like the height of the support beams.

"Wednesday morning, 3am" by Simon & Garfunkel

"Pretzel logic" by Steely Dan

The site of the "Pretzel logic" album cover was Fifth Avenue and 79th Street, west side of street, just above the 79th Street Transverse (the road through Central Park) at the park entrance called "Miners' Gate".
See Bob Egan’s whole collection at PopSpotsNYC.com.
The Beatles have a few locations they have made famous. The most infamous of all "Abbey Road" which a crowd of people have copied, and their early album "Please please me" with the fab four on a balcony of the EMI offices, which was used again for the compilation albums "1962-1966" and "1967-1970".
Thinking about Australian album covers and not many come to mind, Dragon - "Bondi Rd", Cold Chisel with "Breakfast at Sweethearts" (the Sweethearts Cafe in Kings Cross is now a McDonalds) or "Last wave of summer" (the band at a Wyong service station) though like Dylan's iconic "Subterranean Homesick Blues" film-clip (which has been imitated to the nth degree),

I can think of a number of iconic film-clips that could qualify as potential "now & thens" -
AC/DCs "It's a long way to the top" with the guys on the back of a flat-bed truck through the streets of Melbourne; The Mixtures' "Push bike song" again Melbourne streets; The Oils "U.S.Forces" against the backdrop of the Harbour Bridge.

A shining light

I was the last in my family to watch this movie - South Solitary, but it was worth the wait.

In 1927 Meredith Appleton (Miranda Otto) arrives on the rugged South Solitary island with her only relative, her uncle George Wadsworth (Barry Otto) - the new replacement Head Keeper (as the previous one shot himself). Having lost her previous secretarial job, Meredith is forced to rely on her uncle’s charity by cooking and cleaning for him on whatever lighthouse he is stationed at.
The gruff Wardsworth sets to restoring discipline to the lighthouse, while Meredith attempts to make friends in the very hierarchical system, with Alma Stanley (Essie Davis) and her 9 year-old daughter Nettie (Annie Martin). But it is her liaison with assistant keeper Harry Stanley (Rohan Nichol) which forces the Stanley family to leave the island and Wardsworth to over exert himself and die.

Meredith & Jack

Leaving the troubled and reclusive Jack Fleet (Marton Csokas) as the solitary keeper, when a gale forces him and Meredith to spend several days trapped in the lighthouse tower together. The experience builds a relationship between the two and as Meredith leaves the island they promise to write to each other.
Being something of a lighthouse fan, I found the actual lighthouses (Cape Nelson and CapeOtway) the chief stars of the film. The cinematography of the rough rugged island with the tramway with its silvered timber tracks, the windblasted herbage, and the indomintable lighthouse tower was magnificent. And the lamb a bit of a star too.
The film has its own webpage at http://southsolitary.iconmovies.com.au/

Cape Nelson light & cottages

Watching the skies

Must be time for another abandoned post, again it's from the people at WebUrbanist - Watch Out: 15 eerie abandoned observatories. 

Austral Felix Aguilar Observatory in Santa Cruz, Patagonia

Observatorio Astronomico, Lisbon

Warner & Swasey Observatory, Cleveland

I must admit I scrolled through the list to see if the Mt Stromlo Observatory rated a mention. It didn't so I've included one photo of my own.
Mt Stromlo was established in 1924 to study the origin of the universe.
Stromlo was a victim of the January 2003 firestorm which raced through the Canberra suburbs, more than 530 homes were lost and several people died.
The Mt Stromlo facility was in the fire's path as it raced up the mountain, and most buildings and all but one of the large and historic telescopes were destroyed by the fire.
Observatory work recommenced shortly after, and restoration of the site continues.

74" reflecting telescope, erected in 1953, was the largest in the Southern Hemisphere

Tien Shan Mountains, Kazakhstan

Mohon del Trigo Observatory, Sierra Nevada in Spain