Tjilpi

ATTEMPTED FORGERY. TINTIN INVESTIGATES.

 

Since Capt. Haddock sent his telegram, our intrepid reporter Tintin has arrived in Alice Springs and has already discoverd an amateurish attempt to forge an Xtalman masterpiece.  On the left is what appears to be a circuit diagram of a Band Pass Filter, but in reality it is a Foo Forgery. Tintin first noticed that the fingers bore a suspicious resemblance to resistors and then that the nose is really an electrolytic capacitor with the eyes simply being the symbols for positive and negative.  The hair of course is an inductor or coil. Tintin, Tjilpi and Xtalman have now joined forces in the search for Foo.  Tjilpi has pointed out to his famous friends that there is one thing missing in this crude attempt at imitation, and that is it is not signed with Xtalmans imprimateur of ©®™ with 8192 bit encryption.  Investigations continue.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: FOO HITS AND RUNS AGAIN!

ALICE SPRINGS Thursday 26 January 2012: Yet another graffito has appeared on the Town Library Wall.  Police suspect Foo, the despised mastermind behind many such defacings, to be once again behind this senseless act of vandalism. Northern Territory Police Commander Bruce Oz announced the formation of a Special Foo Unit which will be set up as soon as his operational staff are able to get through the crowds of flag waving Australians who have gathered to demonstrate against this artistic barbarity.  Commander Oz said that he had already been in consultation with XTALMAN who was prepared to assist, at any time, in the hunt for Foo. [By our Staff Reporter]

Xtalman Adds Capacity

For those unfamiliar with the Primitive Line Circuit Diagram art school, Xtal is often used as an abbreviation for Crystal.  One art critic suggested that Tjilpi's original lino cut masterpiece had something of the appeal of Mr Magoo or Foo, if the image were rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise.  While appreciating this reference, Tjilpi prefers the name Xtalman.

Crystal Radio Sets, the making of which was a popular hobby in the 1930s, used a crystal of galena - lead sulphide - the ore from which lead is obtained, as a detector, or what is now known as a diode, to demodulate the audio signal carried by an amplitude modulated [AM] carrier wave.  A "cats whisker" made of metal wire, wound into a coil with a probing tip, was moved around on the crystal of galena until a 'hot spot' was found and a station was heard through the headphones: seen on the right of the diagram looking reminiscent of "Foo" looking over a fence.  On the right of the top line is a left-pointing triangle with a rectangular block beside it. This is the symbol for a diode - a piece of electronic trickery originally made using the element Germanium - which replaced the galena crystal.  Even when a Germanium diode is used in place of a piece of galena - the radio - which functions without batteries as it only needs the energy gathered by its antenna, is still known as a Crystal Set. A simple radio such as this will receive many stations at once, as it has no means of selecting one from the other.  In order to make such a radio selective, a tuned circuit is added to pick out stations operating on different frequencies.  The addition of a capacitor, represented by the bright white lines with horizontal bars mid-left circuit, is one way of doing this, and that is why Xtalman has "added capacity" to his original form, which may be seen in a post below. 

Rapid changes in technology have not only seen galena suitable for use in crystal sets difficult to obtain, but Germanium diodes are equally hard to find. Tjilpi has fond memories of making crystal set radios with both types of detector when he was a weeaye of about twelve summers, so if anybody is having difficulty wondering what he would like for his birthday: there's a hint.

Déjà vu

It suddenly came back to me.  There I was sitting at the Command and Control Station in my Bunker on the Old Eastside of town, looking out at my sparkling blue swimming pool, when a Tree Martin came in from the south, banked and dived steeply to the east to do a "touch and go" on the surface of the water before repeating the trick by completing another circuit and then disappearing.

 I've never understood what they are doing. I've wondered about their being so thirsty that they will drink chlorinated swimming pool water, or whether they are picking up insects which are floating on the surface. 

I first saw the phenomenon in January 1979, through the south facing window of my ground floor single room at the Professional Officers Quarters at the Alice Springs Hospital.  The large ceiling to floor window, seen in the faded photo above, looked out on the hospital swimming pool, from what I always regarded as the best room in the house.  Then [notice there is no need to say, 'back then' as 1979 gives that game away], the birds repeated their "touch and goes" numerous times.  January in 1979 was very hot.  It's been 42°C here [now] the last couple of days, but I remember a run of 14 days all of which were over 40°C in January '79.

There must be something special about being in an air conditioned room, with a south facing window looking over a swimming pool watching Tree Martins do their tricks in the heat of January.  I'll have to think more on it.

Tjilpi Turns to Art

Tjilpi's bout of writers block has not resolved, so he decided to turn his hand to art.  On the left is one of his early Linocuts. 

It belongs to the School known as Primitive Line Linocuts. 

This Linocut is outstanding in "real life". Unfortunately, the reproduction process used by the printers of the photo has turned what is in fact a fantastic blood red background into a muddy orange, and they have also horizontally "flipped" the whole image 180 degrees to conform with normal circuit diagram orientation.  Apparently the printers weren't aware that Tjilpi fully intended the image to be 180 degrees out of whack horizontally when he cut the lino prior to pressing the image.  However, whichever way you look at it, this work is a masterpiece.

Tjilpi's pieces will be on sale in the Todd Street Mall when the Alice Springs Markets recommence operation in a month or so.  Critics are suggesting that this early work will command a four figure sum. When asked about his attitude to the Dot Painting School, Tjilpi gruffly replied that it really wasn't very difficult to connect the dots to make lines, and he wondered why people hadn't thought of doing that before he did.

Writer's Block ...

It came, it saw, it conquered.

I hope it goes away.