The Wild Goose

Barcelona Rules

Our cover this issue from Paul Downton, the architect who designed Christie Walk. Roman noticed his photos from a visit to Barcelona, and invited him to present a selection as a slideshow for Wild Goose. Paul decided he’d rather do a greenscreen presentation, and we hope you’ll agree it’s been worth the wait.

Gaudi & Barcelona

Paul Downton

If you’re in Barcelona, and have an interest in architecture, then you’ll be hunting down the Gaudi buildings.
Paul Downton, Architect and director of Ecopolis did exactly that. We invited him to share some thoughts (and slides) with us.

 

Australian architect, writer, artist and urban evolutionary, Paul has been called a ‘father of the ecocity movement’ and sees ecocities as an evolutionary adventure. His best known built project is Christie Walk, in Adelaide. Author of “Ecopolis – architecture and cities for a changing climate” (2009), Paul is working on “The Fractal Handbook for Urban Evolutionaries” and a series of graphic novels “The Wild Cities of Half Earth”. He is impatient and frustrated by mainstream architecture and planning and would prefer to be living in a more Gaudi-esque world. 

Delilah Dirk: Delightful!

Roman Orszanski

 

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant
& Delilah Dirk and the King’s Shilling

by Tony Cliff (First Second)

 

Tony Cliff is a decades long veteran of the Canadian animation industry, and three times nominee for an Eisner award. The first of his Delilah Dirk novels, Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant, is a mad adventure story set in Istanbul, 1807.

Far Out Sector

Roman Orszanski

As a long-time fan of Green Lantern — I loved the old Hal Jordan stories — I could hardly resist a new Green Lantern series, particularly when it’s written by a brilliant writer!

Sojourner “Jo” Mullein is a rookie Green Lantern who’s been sent to a far corner of the galaxy, far removed from other Green Lanterns, to solve a murder.

Out of Total Control

Roman Orszanski

You might expect a series called Total Control would be about politics. The original working title for the series was Black B*tch

Deborah Mailman plays an indigenous woman in outback Queensland who is coopted by a conservative government headed by PM Rachel Anderson (played by Rachel Griffiths).

His Dark Materials

Roman Orszanski

One of the delights 
in recent TV watching is the new HBO/BBC production of His Dark Materials, based on the wonderful trilogy from Philip Pullman.

Unlike the 2007 film of The Golden Compass, the TV series doesn’t sanitise the evil of the Magisterium, a religious organisation which rules Lyra’s world. The film suggested that the evil was a military fascism with religious overtones, rather than being a key characteristic of strict authoritarian religions.

The Watchmen Sequel

Roman Orszanski

I was a big fan of the original Watchmen 
comic series, which dealt with Thatcher and Nuclear War, and enjoyed the movie which focussed on Reagan and genetech. How, I wondered, would it fare as a TV series?

This HBO TV series is surprising, in that it has a strong focus on race relations in the US — remember that the original was british oriented — and appears to follow on from the original Watchmen story, some decades later. A good cast, and some lovely characters.

Disaster Movie Binge

Adam Jenkins

With exam marking time back for another semester, I was on the lookout for something to watch. It had to require zero thinking to enjoy – I had no wish to be challenged – but be engaging enough so I would still manage to get something out of it. The answer was Amazon Prime and their collection of very, very bad disaster movies.

40 Days and Nights (2012)

Our hero, John (played by Alex Carter, who is better known for his television appearances, including a recurring role in CSI), is an engineer working to develop a new power system for the arks being built by the US Navy, because apparently diesel engines are not a thing. The arks are needed: any time now, a giant tsunami will flood all of the world’s continents and destroy all life.