DOC'S NEW EXHIBITION

Painter, writer, magician and all-round showman Tony Shiels is marking the 350th anniversary of Punch & Judy's first appearance on British soil with a series of new paintings.

Not that there's anything unusual in his choice of subject, the satirical seaside figure of Mr Punch having been a regular part of the artist's output since the 1970s.

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   Mr Punchinello is one of several new paintings by Tony 'Doc' Shiels being exhibited in Marazion PHIL MONCKTON

Shiels, who lived and worked in Cornwall for several decades – where he built a reputation as one of the 20th century's greatest surrealists, as well as being a famed monster hunter and operating a travelling theatre company – is now based in Ireland. There he continues to paint – drawing on influences gained in Cornwall and constantly returning to his pet themes of sea heads, gunslingers, bullfights and Mr Punch.

An exhibition, including a number featuring Mr Punch, is now on show at the Market House Gallery in Marazion. And while it may be a disappointingly small collection by the bad boy of Cornish painting, it nevertheless acts as a reminder of just how exciting the visual arts can be – but rarely are these days.

Known by all simply as "Doc", Shiels was an important figure of what is now regarded as St Ives' artistic heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. He spent time in Paris and Spain as a young man, studying the likes of Picasso and Braque, moved to St Ives in 1958, and lived for 25 years at Ponsanooth, where he and his wife Chris raised a family of five.

As well as painting, writing and touring a series of ground-breaking theatre and music shows, he is remembered for documenting Morgawr, the monster of Falmouth Bay. During this time he also produced what believers regard as the most convincing colour photograph of the Loch Ness Monster. Now in his 70s and still painting full-time, he lives near Killarney in the west of Ireland.

His latest Cornish show features Mr Punch in a series of guises, from the stunning Mr Punchinello to Mr Punch Does A Card Trick and Punch And Jack Of Diamonds. Other titles include Cock Of The Bay, Black Kerry Bog Beast, People Dancing Near Here and Unchosen Harbour.

The exhibition is at the Market House Gallery in Marazion until the end of October. Admission free. For more details, visit: www.markethousegallery.co.uk

DOC SHIELS HAS A NEW WEBSITE

http://www.francis-shiels.co.uk/

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CORINNA PHOTOGRAPHS THE WIZARD

Following the Yellow Brick Road

As some of you know, the bloggo is usually written 24hrs in advance. This is to cover eventualities like me being unwell or something exciting happening. Today (Tuesday) however, the bloggo is being curated by Graham, even though I am writing this in advance on Monday to explain it all.


Why?


Because by the time that you read this, Corinna and I will be in Redruth paying a visit to an old friend.


We're off to see the wizard..

THE OWLMAN COMETH

Doc Shiels rang me up at about 2a.m. on May Day. He wanted to wish us a happy Bealtaine, but in the course of a rambling conversation he warned that Owlman "stuff" might be happening this summer. The next day Matt Williams emailed me this! He wrote:



'Interesting that this OWL in Woodoborough is close to West Stowell which some call West OWL which is home to Jacob Rothschild.'



The game is afoot it seems.

MAX BLAKE: Eyewitness account of the events at the Lakes of Killarney, Co Kerry, last thursday

On Thursday the 17^th of September, 2009 Tony ‘Doc’ Shiels took Jonathan Downes, Corinna Downes and myself around a peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland. After travelling around the ring we reached a viewpoint called Lady’s View, a raised viewpoint from which you could see the three lakes of Killarney, North Lake, Muckross Lake and Lough Leane. I stood with the JVC Everio video camera, Corinna was using a Canon 350d with a 70-300mm telephoto lens, and Jon had a small point and click 3x zoom Fujifilm Z10. Once we were alone, after we had all talked about sightings of lake monsters on the lakes, particularly Muckross, Tony told us to keep watching the Northen lake. The lake was generally calm and still, there was a very very gentle breeze in the air, and the centre of the lake had a gentle amount of rippling on it, whilst the rest was very still. There was a floating log or rock in the lake about 50yrds out from the edge, near our side. There was also a large island over to the right hand side. This was around 50-60yrds long, and 30yrds wide (please see rough sketch).

After a couple of minutes a couple of large white ripples started to break on the surface. What made these ripples I do not know; I saw nothing break the water. I was already filming, but as the battery was running very low, I expected it to stop filming and die at any minute. A couple more ripples broke, and Jon said that he could see something large and white moving in the north end of the lake. It dived down before I could see it/film it. The rough area that this occurred in has been called 'anomalous 1' in the sketch. A little later there was a large wake forming in front of the log/rock. This moved at a rapid pace toward the shoreline. I zoomed in to about 12x, and the object broke the surface before diving. This created a large ripple, which can be seen on the film. Both the ripple and the wake spread out and took a while to vanish. This has been called 'anomalous 2' on the sketch. After this occurred a bird on the water took off to the right of 'anomalous 2' and flew off in a curve, coming at first straight toward us, then over to the left. It left behind a wake as it peddled along the water to get airbourne, before taking off and being visible to me as a small black bird. It was probably a tufted duck.

A couple more ripples later, and another object was seen moving on the right side of the Island, moving right. It was moving slower than 'anomalous 2 and as such the sighting lasted longer. There seemed to be something pertruding from the water making the wake, but this could have been a trick of the eye. The track of this has been called 'anomalous 3' in the sketch.

What I saw, I do not know. I saw no features of an animal making the wake. All I know is that something large made the marks. A large salmon moving across the top of the water would not have made a mark anywhere near the size of this. If I had to make a guess, I would say that it was most likely to have been a giant eel.

FOLLOWING ON FROM YESTERDAY'S `SONS OF THE DESERT` VIDEO...

BIRD ATTACKS IN FALMOUTH BAY - We've been here before

At the beginning of the year, the good doctor telephoned me, and said that this was going to be a rather special year for those of us who have been watching the quasi-fortean events in southern Cornwall over the past third of a century.

And in a low key sort of way, it has been. Earlier in the year there were a spate of sightings of a strange bipedal mammal in the woods between Mawnan Old Church and Maenporth Beach, and so I was not particularly surprised when I received several notifications of a series of raptor attacks in the Helford passage. As anyone who has ever made a study of such things will know, we have been here before.

Watch this space, because the game is most definitely afoot....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/8158022.stm

DOC SHIELS JUST RANG....

...which is one of the reasons that the blog is running a few minutes late. However, in his younger days he played piano alongside the legendary (or should that be sensational?) Alex Harvey. So here is an apposite excerpt from Harvey's remarkably obscure 1977 album Alex Harvey presents the Loch Ness Monster

THE LONESOME DEATH OF MISTER LIZARDMAN

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/2009/06/police-murder-victim-lizard-man-witness.html

It was my friend and mentor (and - while we are at it - the nearest thing to a father I have left in this world), Tony 'Doc' Shiels first introduced me to the concept of psychic backlash. Indeed, I often think that it was probably him who first coined the term. Indeed, it was me who first coined the term 'Zooform Phenomenon' and my mate, Ismael Aguyao who first described the bipedal quasi-vampire of the Canovenas Plateau in Puerto Rico as the goatsucker or chupacabra (although it seems the term was in existance as an abusive one beforehand); so the idea that a bloke you know can coin a term that has taken its place with pride amongst the canon of Fortean literature is not that surprising.

In my book Only Fools and Goatsuckers I wrote:

'Tony Shiels is probably the most powerful and wisest man that I have ever met. He has the power to summon up monsters. Although I go looking for them, I would never attempt to emulate him in his invocatory activities because by the laws of magick once you cause something to happen you have to be responsible for the consequences and whilst I can deal with the consequences of looking for something like the chupacabra and even of chronicling its activities and drawing some tentative conclusions as to its nature I cannot take the responsibility for summoning it to appear before me like a rabbit out of a hat. Indeed, I very much doubt whether I have the power to do so.

One thing that I do know about monster hunting, however, is that those who practice it are susceptible to what “Doc” has called “Psychic Backlash”. This is a series of inexplicable and horrific outbreaks of bad luck that can overtake the hapless seeker after monstrous truth on his way to his goal. I never believed in it until, during the months that I was working on The Owlman and Others, two of my pet cats died suddenly, two computers blew up (as did two cars) and my wife left me.'

I wrote those words eleven years ago and nothing that has happened since has done anything to make me feel like changing my mind. Psychic backlash is a very real phenomenon and is the reason I don't really follow the "animals" of the left-hand path anymore. The game, to use Graham's wonderful phrase, which I think he stole from a Billy Bunter story, just isn't worth the candle.

And the news story to which I have linked at the top of the page hasn't done anything to change my mind either.

The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp (also known as The Lizard Man Of Lee County) is a humanoid cryptid which is said to inhabit areas of swampland in and around Lee County, South Carolina. It is described as being seven feet tall (over 2m), bipedal and well built, with green scaly skin and glowing orange eyes. It is said to have three toes on each foot and three fingers on each hand, which end in a circular pad on them that stick to walls. The creature has an incredible degree of strength, more than capable of ripping into a car.

The first reported sighting of the creature was made by Christopher Davis, a 17-year-old local, who said he encountered the creature while driving home from work at 2 a.m. on June 29, 1988. According to his account, Davis stopped on a road bordering Scape Ore Swamp in order to change a tyre that had blown out. When he was finishing up he reported having heard a thumping noise from behind and having turned around to see the creature running towards him. Davis said the creature tried to grab at the car and then jumped on its roof as he tried to escape, clinging onto it as Davis swerved from side to side in an effort to throw it off. After he returned home, Davis's side-view-mirror was found to be badly damaged and scratch marks were found on the car's roof - though there was no other physical evidence of his encounter.

“I looked back and saw something running across the field towards me. It was about 25 yards away and I saw red eyes glowing. I ran into the car and as I locked it, the thing grabbed the door handle. I could see him from the neck down – the three big fingers, long black nails and green, rough skin. It was strong and angry. I looked in my mirror and saw a blur of green running. I could see his toes and then he jumped on the roof of my car. I thought I heard a grunt and then I could see his fingers through the front windshield, where they curled around on the roof. I sped up and swerved to shake the creature off.”

In the month that followed the Davis sighting there were several further reports of a large lizard-like creature and of unusual scratches and bite marks found on cars parked close to the swamp. Two weeks after the Davis sighting the sheriff's department made several plaster casts of what appeared to be three-toed footprints - measuring some 14 inches (360 mm) in length - but decided against sending them on to the FBI for further analysis after biologists advised them that they were unclassifiable.

And after that the legend fizzled out, although Davis was a minor celebrity who appeared on paranormal TV shows, where he talked about his experience, on and off for the next two decades. But apparently this new-found fame brought him no happiness and now he is dead - the victim of a drug-related shooting. As the Sumter Item reports:

'Former Lee County Sheriff Liston Truesdale said there would be no Lizard Man without Davis. "In July 1988, Chris was the first witness interviewed as seeing the Lizard Man," Truesdale said. "And what impressed me was that he told the same story every time. And he had to tell the story over and over again to the media and others. If you're lying, you can't tell the same story twice." Everybody wanted to hear the Lizard Man story from the eyewitness, Truesdale said.

Davis served as a grand marshal at a festival parade and signed T-shirts at a mall in Myrtle Beach, he said. "At that time, he was super, nice kid," he said. "You know, I bet he told the story more than 100 times every week for several weeks." Truesdale said he believes the media attention and publicity became too much for him."He could have made a mint from this," Truesdale said. "A lot of people don't know that he was scheduled to go to the Oprah (Winfrey) Show, but he cancelled it. I think finally he just had enough."'

Bad luck does tend to haunt those who encounter monsters. It has done me no good in my life, it has adversely affected Tony Shiels and I can think of a dozen other folk who have got too close to one of these dark zooform shadows, and it has ruined parts of their lives for a time at least. Killing someone? Probably not; but screwing your head until the only way out is narcotic and then leading someone into a drug-soaked hell? Been there, done that, got the tee shirt. It's just that my druggy associates didn't have guns.

Is this Psychic backlash at work or just another victim of an increasingly unstable and screwed up society?

We shall never know but this underlines my decision even more. To the people who want me to go back and write another book about Owlman, or even worse, to get involved in some half-arsed scheme to do a seance to summon it up, the answer is NO!

(Not unless you pay me a hell of a lot more than I usually get paid, because each man has his price, and mine is not as high as you might think)

CFZ ARCHIVING PROJECT: The Owlman and Others

Oll Lewis has done a very good job (and is continuing to do a very good job) digitising the CFZ Archives. Eventually they will ALL be available on line, and they will be indexed and sorted. Even the 30,000+ pictures in the CFZ picture library will be available for free as low res thumbnails, and for money as high res downloads. But this takes time and effort, but we get there slowly.

In the meantime here is a collection of newspaper stories from the CFZ Archive of Owlman-Related material. There is tons and tons more, but these (which include the hysterically funny "Weirdest Family in the Land" story frtom The Sun in April 1978) will do for starters..


http://www.cfz.org.uk/Archiving/Owlman/Newspaper/

THE GOOD DOCTOR IS BACK IN TOWN

http://www.markethousegallery.co.uk/

"DOC" SHIELS SENT THIS CLIPPING...

There were bits in here that amused him greatly...

Eat yer heart out Edward Lear

Those of you who have read my book, The Owlman and Others which is set in the woods around Mawnan Old Church in southern Cornwall, will know that there is an ongoing sub-text about Edward Lear. Lear (1812-1888) was a painter, poet, artist, writer and composer of nonsense poetry and limericks. His work is also the subtext of Seven Sunflower Seeds by one of my favourite authors, the late Sir John Verney an author who's glorious prose should be read by every fortean.

I quoted both Verney and Lear in The Owlman and Others and so I suppose that I should not be overly surprised at the latest developments surrounding the new Beast of Falmouth Bay It was seen in a set of woodlands which join on to the woodlands where the subject of my most well known book is said to roost.

These woodlands are already the home of a twisted, scarified owl, and now seem to be the haunt of a sililarly twisted and scarified pussycat. We confidently expect a visit from the pigs, and a pea green boat. Watch this space....

http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/pussy.html

A SNEAK PREVIEW OF THE NEXT BOOK OF WIZARDLY WISDOM

CFZ Press are happy to announce that 2009 will see the publication of not one, but two books from the legendary surrealist and fortean Tony “Doc” Shiels.

The first of them is a long awaited reissue of his classic book Monstrum: A Wizard’s Tale which, amongst other thing, tells the story of the events of the extraordinary summer of 1976 when southern Cornwall became a hotbed of high strangeness. UFOs crossed the skies, Morgawr (`sea-dragon` in the ancient Cornish language) the sea-serpent swam up the Helford Estuary, and in the woods surrounding Mawnan Old Church, the grotesque Owlman held court.

Monstrum was first published in 1988 by Fortean Tomes, and now sells on the second-hand market for large sums of money. This 2009 edition, with extra illustrations and a new introduction, appears courtesy of Bob Rickard, who has kindly waived his rights to the book.

Lytham and Booze, however is a brand new book; a joyous and surreal romp:

“I am picking the noses and tickling the tails of Betty Boop,Mothman, Thomas the Tank Engine, Tiger Woods, Biffo the Bear, Nessie, Batman, Sitting Bull, Dracula, Crazy Horse, Tarzan, Godzilla, Peter Rabbit, Humpty Dumpty, Owlman, Lady Godiva, King Kong and several more..”

Both books will be published on the Summer Solstice, and are certain - no doubt - to be enthusiastically snapped up by those of us, who - like the management of CFZ Press - have been devotees of the good “doctor” for many years.

For more information write to:

CFZ PRESS,
Myrtle Cottage,
9 Back Street
Woolfardisworthy,
Bideford, North Devon
EX39 5QR
+44(0)1237 431413
e-mail: info@cfz.org.uk