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escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17896 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 4 Gender: Female |
 Posted: 27-10-2009 22:08 Post subject: |
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Spook, what be this psychogeography of which you speak? 
I have J.A. Brooks' Ghosts of London here.
Its East End section mentions lots of haunted pubs. One could plan a bicycle tour of these locations, for serious research purposes, of course.  |
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| Spookdaddy Cuckoo Joined: 24 May 2006 Total posts: 3924 Location: Midwich Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 27-10-2009 23:37 Post subject: |
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| escargot1 wrote: | | Spook, what be this psychogeography of which you speak? |
It's hard to come up with a decent definition that doesn't come over as completely pretentious. Basically, I'd describe it as almost another dimension - one created not by the history or the geography of the place you are passing through, or the influence both have had on the psychology of those who have passed the same way, but all of those things rolled into one.
The best description I can find on the net at short notice is - | Quote: | | Psychogeography is the hidden landscape of atmospheres, histories, actions and characters which charge environments. |
(here)
I quite like that.
I came to it through urban walking. I walk everywhere and you can't do that for long in a city like, for example, London without noticing how layered, physically and psychologically, the landscape is. |
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| escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17896 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 4 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 28-10-2009 00:29 Post subject: |
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Oh yep, know what you mean.
I think an aspect of this is seen in popular TV archaeology/history programmes, like Time Team and that one where they trace the sites of vanished buildings such as Henry VIII's huge palace.
While these aren't about any psychic elements of the place they feature, the feeling of peeling back layers of the land and looking at the places from the past hidden beneath is certainly there. |
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| uair01 Great Old One Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Total posts: 1108 Gender: Male |
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| escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17896 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 4 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 05-11-2009 09:24 Post subject: |
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| Will Self's talking about it on R4 now! |
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| James_H2 Great Old One Joined: 26 Mar 2009 Total posts: 709 Location: Hackney! Gender: Male |
| Posted: 06-11-2009 01:58 Post subject: |
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| I think Will Self actually used to do a column called psychogeography (or something similar?) in one of the broadsheets, with illustrations by Ralph Steadman. |
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| bunnymousekitt rabbity mousey cat-like thing
Great Old One Joined: 03 Jan 2009 Total posts: 218 Location: hiding under the kitchen sink Age: 36 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 06-11-2009 05:52 Post subject: |
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| Spookdaddy wrote: | | escargot1 wrote: | | Spook, what be this psychogeography of which you speak? |
It's hard to come up with a decent definition that doesn't come over as completely pretentious. Basically, I'd describe it as almost another dimension - one created not by the history or the geography of the place you are passing through, or the influence both have had on the psychology of those who have passed the same way, but all of those things rolled into one.
The best description I can find on the net at short notice is - | Quote: | | Psychogeography is the hidden landscape of atmospheres, histories, actions and characters which charge environments. |
(here)
I quite like that.
I came to it through urban walking. I walk everywhere and you can't do that for long in a city like, for example, London without noticing how layered, physically and psychologically, the landscape is. |
I find this utterly fascinating. I have an acute sense of this even though the area where I live has not been populated much more than a hundred years, though some European visitors - also, one of my friends from East London in fact - find the atmosphere here to be curiously "weightless" compared to their home countries.
Very interesting that history could be perceived as a weight, somehow. |
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| PeniG Proud children's writer Joined: 31 Dec 2003 Total posts: 2920 Location: San Antonio, Texas Age: 52 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 06-11-2009 15:42 Post subject: |
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Actually, Ms. Kitt, since I understand you to live somewhere on the Gulf Coastal Plain of Texas, the area has been populated for a lot longer than that. The individual who has found the largest number of Clovis point (dated roughly between 13,000-11,000 YBP) is a child who lives near a beach in South Texas where points regularly wash up from a cache buried during the Ice Age and inundated when the waterline rose. This continent has been populated for a long time, possibly for 40,000 years (if the Mexican footprints work out) or so.
It's true that only the last couple of hundred years or so have left large visible surface traces, but in another 11,000 years even that footprint may have washed out. We have a truncated sense of history and the popular idea of "old" is laughable. Pyramids are johnny-come-lately in the human story.
I'll now ride my hobby horse into the sunset, thank you for your patience. |
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| bunnymousekitt rabbity mousey cat-like thing
Great Old One Joined: 03 Jan 2009 Total posts: 218 Location: hiding under the kitchen sink Age: 36 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 07-11-2009 14:11 Post subject: |
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| PeniG wrote: | Actually, Ms. Kitt, since I understand you to live somewhere on the Gulf Coastal Plain of Texas, the area has been populated for a lot longer than that. The individual who has found the largest number of Clovis point (dated roughly between 13,000-11,000 YBP) is a child who lives near a beach in South Texas where points regularly wash up from a cache buried during the Ice Age and inundated when the waterline rose. This continent has been populated for a long time, possibly for 40,000 years (if the Mexican footprints work out) or so.
It's true that only the last couple of hundred years or so have left large visible surface traces, but in another 11,000 years even that footprint may have washed out. We have a truncated sense of history and the popular idea of "old" is laughable. Pyramids are johnny-come-lately in the human story.
I'll now ride my hobby horse into the sunset, thank you for your patience. |
My bad. I forgot to say densely populated. |
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| Hexebus Eldridge Joined: 16 Sep 2004 Total posts: 67 Location: on board Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 10-11-2009 13:11 Post subject: |
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Leyton/Leytonstone are are of interest as they are a convergence point for ley lines.
Also, there was once a bear called "Charlie Brown" (I assume he was a brown bear) at a pub in South Woodford E18, so he could of made his way to the marshes? |
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| James_H2 Great Old One Joined: 26 Mar 2009 Total posts: 709 Location: Hackney! Gender: Male |
| Posted: 10-11-2009 14:34 Post subject: |
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| Hexebus wrote: | Leyton/Leytonstone are are of interest as they are a convergence point for ley lines.
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That sounds interesting, do you have any more info? |
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| Hexebus Eldridge Joined: 16 Sep 2004 Total posts: 67 Location: on board Gender: Unknown |
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| Spookdaddy Cuckoo Joined: 24 May 2006 Total posts: 3924 Location: Midwich Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 10-11-2009 18:44 Post subject: |
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I doubt though that there's a single square mile (and you could probably go a lot smaller than that) of London where you couldn't find similar patterns, if you were as selective in your choice of data and as prone to imaginative road-name interpretation.
Coincidentally, the story I related earlier on in this thread took place only a few hundred yards further south from where the map ends. |
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| Fats_Tuesday Great Old One Joined: 05 Sep 2001 Total posts: 518 Location: London Age: 43 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 11-11-2009 18:53 Post subject: |
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I've been in to psychogeography for many years now, ever since I read Alan Moore's writings in my youth.
I used it as a framework around which to build my exploration of London when I moved here, and found it helped me enjoy wandering around the ugly areas of town just as much as the pretty ones.
Used to take regular dérives around town with like-minded friends and built up a superb knowledge of many aspects of London whilst doing it, ending up often in the strangest of places. Once ended up walking the entire northern outfall sewer on one occasion and found 2 Harry Potter night buses parked in the Guildhall on another:
http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/68150934amXpLJ?vhost=entertainment |
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| Timble2 Imaginary person Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Total posts: 7114 Location: Practically in Narnia Age: 58 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 11-11-2009 19:02 Post subject: |
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Amazing find, it's a good thing you got photo's otherwise you might start thinking you'd dreamt it... |
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