The Dirigible
THE MONKEY AIRSHIP AT THE PANCAKE PARLOUR RESTAURANT IN NORTHLAND
Lovely!Tone News inert gas photographic airship for the correct and exact recording (by means of the action of light on suitably prepared silver-nitrate film) the annual "Great Colonial Heavier-Than-Air Pancake Tossing Race For Ladies", held in conjunction with Shrove Tuesday, an International Pancake Celebration Day.
The clockwork-powered airship is piloted by an elderly, semi-retired Chimpanzee trained in the art of aerial photographic reconnaisance, having spent some fruitful years in the employ of the late colonial balloonist and photographer Townsend Durreaux, celebrated for his panoramic views of the battlefields of The First World War.
The airship is the last remaining example of a type once common and has been extensively remodelled from original plans. The jet-assisted take-off device, obvious under the pod of the main basket, is a relatively recent addition made necessary after a near-fatal attack by a rhinocerous whilst the airship (and it's occupant) were on duty in Tanganyika.
A point of mild historic interest is the large cane-woven basket which passes for a cockpit... some have speculated that it is no more than a common laundry basket... which in fact it is, except that it was especially woven by a coven of blind nuns involved in the relief of Paris during the Great Seige of 1886.
With the aid of a giant ancient projector Peter Von enlarged the graphics of ‘The Dogs’, ‘The Granny’, ‘The Tossing Lady’ and of course the ‘Lovely! Lady’ and then hand- painted dozens of sheets of medium density fibreboard to create enormous cut-outs in sections.
1988 - Northland - Melbourne
Next came Northland and along with it a vast cavernous space with 15 metre high walls. Peter Von hired an enormous factory on Adelaide’s outskirts to complete this challenge.
With the aid of a giant ancient projector he enlarged the graphics of ‘The Dogs’, ‘The Granny’, ‘The Tossing Lady’ and of course the ‘Lovely! Lady’ and then hand- painted dozens of sheets of medium density fibreboard to create enormous cut-outs in sections.
The story as told by Peter Von ...
“I’d been thinking about creating an enormous airship to float up in the huge open space and did all the calculations and drawings, even sourcing some marvellous yellow fabric to cover the aluminium frame from the US. The shopping centre on advice from the Fire Department canned the whole idea as a fire risk. This was the one and only unresolved project in my time.
So I went on with the dirigible, featuring a life-size monkey in a flying suit piloting a smallish rope trimmed airship in yellow rip-stop sail cloth. This was powered by a ‘best boys’ clockwork motor and driven by an ancient riveted copper air screw. My idea was to create a ‘Hail a Pancake Airship’ which was a complete pancake cooking set-up, even incorporating a gorgeous ornate old clothes mangle in miniature ... just in case a customer would rather have a crepe!
I found a really large laundry basket at the Salvo’s op shop and a giant cast iron fry pan in the Army Disposals store. I bought a beautifully crafted 1930’s ship wheel, all brass and mahogany, by chance at a garage sale. The whole creation was mounted high up on the most elegant cast iron light pole, complete with a ‘Hail A Pancake’ scrolled sign, all in bright warm colours.
The giant key on the wind up clockwork motor slowly turned as the copper propeller spun. The monkey sported an enormously long scarf printed with Lovely! Lady motifs. Lots of customers, always men, pointed out that the propeller was turning the wrong way; I just told them it always should when it’s idling. Slowly but surely as the work progressed we lost control of the method, muddling them up, painting some in the other colours, got in each others way, the projector regularly overheated and destroyed slides, the rain got in and Reg Stevens stormed off the job after rowing with the artists hired.
I was too busy creating the accompanying Monkey Steered Dirigible and the moving murals to go with it to devote enough time to what was going on. Consequently without me the panels ended up incorrectly marked, causing gigantic headaches at the building site, especially as they had to be slap bang up against the Hoyts Cinemas common wall. We couldn’t erect any of these gigantic figures until after 11.30pm and only until to 7am. I had to be there night after night as none of the builders could make head nor tail of the dozens of 2.4 metre by 1.2 metre painted panels. Surviving this I completed the Monkey Steered Dirigible after frantically trying to make it for the scheduled Christmas opening.” Peter Von.
1997 - New Location At Northland - Preston
In 1997, the Northland Pancake Parlour changed locations as the shopping centre was revamped. The poor old monkey in his tired dirigible was given a new lease of life as the camera man for LOVELY! TONE NEWS, on duty filming the Pancake Tossing Race for Ladies emblazoned across the far wall. The spring of his ‘Boys Best Clockwork’ motor was tightened up and a distinctive movie camera fashioned from a large aluminium kettle from a country sheep station kitchen fitted. The old cooking apparatus dumped, a complicated light show inside the original but improved yellow dirigible was in place and yellow fancy skids fitted, all substantially upgraded with a shiny post modern aluminium and brass module containing computer gear slung underneath. Tilly then constructed an ingenious and totally original track device in the specially strengthened ceiling to take the whole dirigible up and above the customers. This enabled it to move across the ceiling in tandem with the regular activating of The Pancake Tossing Race Ladies who were now racing (and tossing) in their own individual dirigibles, each one different and unique on the far wall. Tilly had even produced sound for the monkey so that he ‘talks’ to the customers. The monkey had at last come into the 20th Century.