WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...




Tuesday, March 31, 2015

FORTEAN ART TERRORISM: The latest from Xtul

When my family first returned to North Devon in 1971 after an absence of nearly two decades, during which my parents fought gallant rearguard actions against the fall of the British Empire in Nigeria and Hong Kong, they quickly made friends with various members of the local gentry. In those days there was a remarkable range of minor aristocracy and interesting, though often impoverished, gentlefolk who lived in the area. Woolsery Manor, for example, which in later years was a hotel, then fell into disuse, and now as a derelict building has been bought by the bloke who started Bebo, was inhabited by the Count de St Quentin and his wife, a Swedish princess. They were very kind to me during my first year or two in the village, and encouraged me in my pursuits as an amateur naturalist, and wannabe poet.

They even had a private museum, which inspired me that one day I would have something similar of my own. It housed a remarkably arcane collection of disparate things including the foot of a mummified Egyptian priestess, and Marie Antoinette's christening slippers. I loved visiting them, and was very sad when they left the village for pastures new.

Read on...

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

News and stories from the remoter fringes of the CFZ blogosphere...

From CFZ-USA:

BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF




Here's Why Oklahoma Bigfoot Are Dangerous
Bigfoot are known for different traits from region to region. So why is it that bigfoot from Oklahoma are considered by a lot of people meaner than in ...


FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

What has Corinna's column of Fortean bird news got to do with cryptozoology?

Well, everything, actually!

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in.


THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN MARKS TIME

The Gonzo Daily - Tuesday
In Wordsworth's ode on his Intimations of Mortality from Recollections of Early Childhood he wrote: "Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come". I don't know whether I have ever trailed clouds of glory, but for the last few days I have been trailing clouds of phlegm as I stagger around the house coughing like a sick and elderly ram overdue for the knacker's yard. Add to that two badly behaved dogs, who may both have been neutered but I suspect are picking up on the hormones of spring which are in the air, and an overly amorous male tortoise who insists on trying to copulate whilst his inamorata is busily eating aubergine, and you may have a vague idea what springtime at Myrtle Cottage is like.
Yesterday evening I interviewed Ian Jones of Karnataka for the first time. What a ice chap he is. I also spent much of yesterday listening to their latest album and like it very much, as do my long-suffering Mama in Law, and Martin Eve of 4th-Eden.

The Gonzo Weekly #123
www.gonzoweekly.com
Cream, Kansas, Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Viv Albertine, The Slits, Daevid Allen, Hawkwind, Jon Anderson, and Yes fans had better look out!
The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#123) is another bumper one at 92 pages and is available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/. It has Cream  on the cover, and inside yours truly pontificates on the band's legacy while Tony Palmer remembers filming their farewell show back in 1968. Doug writes about proggers Kansas, and Jon critiques the new autobiography by Viv Albertine ofThe Slits. We look at just a few of the many tributes to Daevid Allen, and send the Gonzo Customer Service guy to a Desert Island. Neil Nixon reports on an even stranger album than usual, Wyrd goes avant garde, Xtul gets even more peculiar,  and there are radio shows from Strange Fruit and from M Destiny at Friday Night Progressive, and the titular submarine dwellers are still lost at sea, although I have been assured that they will hit land again soon. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and pademelons trying to choose (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials having difficulty in making choices, but I got carried away with things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
This issue features:
Cream, Ringo Starr, SXSW, Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Blur, Daevid Allen, James Murphy, Galahad, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, John Renbourn, Anthony Pero, Michael Porcaro, Bruce Crump, Jackie Trent, Tommy James, Mick Abrahams, Firemerchants, Dee Palmer, Atkins May Project, Wagner, Hawkwind, Karnataka, Paul Buff, Frank Zappa, Charli XCX, Garth Brooks,5 Seconds of Summer, Ed Sheeran, Tony Palmer, Kansas, Steve Lavelle, HaWkwind, Yes, Viv Albertine, Xtul, Fairport Convention, Belle and Sebastian,Neil Nixon, Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias, Beatles,Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, 1D, Elvis, Micky Dolenz, Tom Jones,  Golden Resurrection, Indicco, Myrath

Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you have problems downloading, just email me and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power chaps, we have to share it!
You can download the magazine in pdf form HERE:
http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/

* The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...
* The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit
* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!

* Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 55 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the infantile orange cat?

NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Tuesday

ON THIS DAY IN 1776 - Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John that women were "determined to foment a rebellion" if the new Declaration of Independence failed to guarantee their rights. 
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Survey of salmonella species in Staten Island Zoo'...
  • China takes steps to save remaining endangered fin...
  • 500 million-year-old lobster-like predator found i...

  • On St. Patrick's Day, here's the real reason Irela...

  • AND TO WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK... (Music that may have some relevance to items also on this page, or may just reflect my mood on the day - today chosen by Jessica)