Monthly Archives: July 2008

Elsewhere #10

I’ve finished my catchup reading of the blogosphere:

In a post titled Possession[1], Valter from Surreal Documents writes:

“In a beautifully written and highly interesting recent post[2] on his interview with Mark Stewart for The Wire, Mark K-Punk writes”:
“…one link between the post-punk trio I wrote about in the July issue (Stewart, Mark E Smith, Ian Curtis) is channeling.

I have the impression, that after hauntology, channeling will be the buzzword of internet intelligentsia of late 2008.

Moon river (the blog[3]) presents Alex Kanevsky[4], a figurative painter reminiscent of Bacon.

American blog Simplyfantastico reports on V-necks[5], what I have worn in the first two weeks of July. He says: “V is the new black! …. by V I’m refering to V-Neck T’s. … It’s sexy it’s sleazy it’s trashy it’s classy. … The days of the wife beater (or boy beater) are gone…”

I’m not sure where the wife beater comes in.

Three other blogs that deserve mention are Va Jouer Avec Cette Poussière[6], a fabulous Francophone blog which features juxtapositions of news items with outrageous visuals, and Austrian artist Herbert Pfostl’s two blogs[7], [8].

Trevor Brown has a post[9] on Marilyn Minter.

Cult fiction item #8

I watched the 1999 film adaptation of Breakfast of Champions yesterday evening. I decided to check this film – after having read the delightful novel in Spain a week ago – because I considered the novel unfilmable. Unfilmable because of the book’s tone, which hovers perfectly between the surreal and the very mundane. Unfilmable also because it is an illustrated novel (with crude illustrations by Vonnegut himself, the anus illustration at the beginning sets the tone) and because the novel features many matter-of-fact explanations (what is a cow?, what is earth?, etc.).

The film was written and directed by minor American director Alan Rudolph and stars Bruce Willis, Albert Finney, Nick Nolte and Barbara Hershey. The film was widely panned by critics. It is indeed painful to watch.

Some feebly redeeming elements include the score by Martin Denny, revisiting Barbara Hershey, Glenne Headly in lingerie and the over-the-top cross-dressing scene by Nick Nolte towards the end.

The only way to adapt this unfilmable novel would have been to add at least a third person omniscient voice-over, instead of trying to hide its novelish antecedents.

This [1] unidentified excerpt – from a Vonnegut documentary I presume – is exactly what I have in mind.

Breakfast of Champions (the novel) is cult fiction item #8.

Cult fiction item #7

Bjorn_Berg_Emil

Björn Berg‘s illustration for one of Astrid Lindgren‘s Emil books.

Swedish graphic artist Björn Berg‘s (1923 – 2008, best-known internationally as the illustrator of Astrid Lindgren‘s Emil books) recent death allows me to introduce Astrid Lindgren‘s short story My Nightingale Is Singing, read it and weep.  Other tales in this collection are equally strong, the whole collection of bleaker short stories by Lindgren is one of the best items of cult fiction of the 20th century. My Nightingale Is Singing is cult fiction item #7.

Icon of Erotic Art #31

It is time for Icon of erotic art #31

Truck Babies (1999) by Patricia Piccinini

Truck Babies (1999) by Patricia Piccinini presents a pair of infant trucks. It is Icon of Erotic Art #31.

“The Truck Babies are infantile not miniature; they have big cheeks and fat bottoms, little wheels and lovely big eyes. They are what I imagined to be the offspring of the big trucks that I saw on the road. I examined the relationship between babies and fully-grown animals and people and applied these developmental changes backwards to the trucks.” [1]

The eroticism of this work is not obvious, but derives from the fact that most procreation is derived from the sexual act. It is my basic tenet that the sexual act is not necessarily “natural“, my favorite quote in this regard is from Leonardo da Vinci:

“The art of procreation and the members employed therein are so repulsive that if it were not for the beauty of the faces and the adornments of the actors and the pent-up impulse, nature would lose the human species.”

A quote that also comes to mind is one by Susan Sontag:

Human sexuality is, quite apart from Christian repressions, a highly questionable phenomenon, and belongs, at least potentially, among the extreme rather than the ordinary experiences of humanity. Tamed as it may be, sexuality remains one of the demonic forces in human consciousness – pushing us at intervals close to taboo and dangerous desires, which range from the impulse to commit sudden arbitrary violence upon another person to the voluptuous yearning for the extinction of one’s consciousness, for death itself.” –Susan Sontag in the The Pornographic Imagination

The sexual act requires humans to gain intimacy to body parts which are “naturally” abhorred by humans, body parts which involve excrementation for example.

The sex drive, to which near all human animals fall prey, has often propelled us to engage in the sexual act with non-human animals. I surmise that the depictions of human-animal hybrids featured in bestiaries so popular in the Middle Ages (only second in popularity to the Bible), is derived from the fear that human-animal copulation would result in offspring.

It is within the context of these bestiaries that the work of Piccinini should be viewed. The uncanniness of Truck Babies is derived from a fear of ascribing animal qualities to machines, machines having become the nearest equivalent to domestic animals in the post-industrial age.

Truck Babies also provides me with an opportunity to announce the death of American science fiction writer Thomas M. Disch (1940 – 2008), author of Camp Concentration, The Brave Little Toaster and 334. The oblique link between Truck Babies and Disch is the anthropomorphism evident in Truck Babies and The Brave Little Toaster.

Back from Nocito

I just got back from Nocito, Spain in the Sierra de Guara where we were stayed for 10 days. The village is a very deserted one [1] which I had visited before. It’s one of the loveliest places on earth. I was quite sad that Senor Thomas had died, he was the one who explained me and my brother how many times to cross the river in order to climb the Tozal de Guara[2] about 10 years ago. The area is sign-posted now, but still is the embodiment of the “end of the world” with its beautiful mix of nature and culture (the dry stone architecture[3]).

Our next door neighbors at the apartment we rented were two children who had the Down syndrome. Which provides me with the sad occasion of announcing the death of beat-era American artist Bruce Conner (1933 – 2008).

BRUCE CONNER MOCKING ROLLS HOOD ORNAMENT
image sourced here.

Despite active removals by YouTube staff, here[4] is Conner’s video for Devo‘s unforgettable post-punk classic “Mongoloid“.

On a much brighter note, I’ve been enchanted with N. E. R. D.‘s “All the Girls Standing in Line for the Bathroom” [5], officially known as “Everybody Nose”, with its catchy beat and social critical lyrics.

This morning, I took my daughters to the Eiffel Tower in Paris because my youngest had never seen it. Apparently, the American dancer Dipset had been there only recently, I see on this marvelous video clip on music by The Tonettes, [6] filmed under the iron icon of French modernism.

Still in Paris, at the Centre Pompidou, I found out that Jean-Michel Ribes published a wonderful book, Le Rire de résistance, in 2007. It is the history of subversive laughter from Diogenes to Charlie Hebdo. Ribes was an accomplice of canonical Roland Topor, an image of whom is lovingly placed on the book’s cover[7]. The book is wonderful, and if you would happen to be new to this blog as well as Francophone, you’d be well out to check this volume.

We drove about 3,000 kilometers and our cd-player’s favorite was Nova Classic 01. Of addictive attraction were Bob Andy‘s “Life”[8], the Joe Cuba Sextet cut “Do You Feel It?” (yes I feel it, but I feel it in an other way”); for an equally enjoyable Joe Cuba track see [9]; and “”Baby, Baby I’ll get down on my knees for you, if you….” ” by American white rapper Necro [10] (and then we found out it was a dirty song, still, I’d be grateful if anyone can point me to the source of the “knees” sample). It provides the main attraction of the song, one can’t argue with Necro’s ability to dig the crates.

Lastly, musically, France’s Fun Radio was plugging an impressive (for its sheer bombast) Rod Stewart “Do You Think I’m Sexy” remix (I have been unable to identify it) and last summer classic; Shanna’s “Il est formellement interdit” [11]. Basic but effective, the French have a pretty solid dance music culture. One of my favorites “Street Dance” [12] is one of the best sold tracks in France.

I have missed you fellow psychonauts and am particularly pleased with Evie Byrne ‘s reaction [13] to my flawed post[14] (thanks Tristan Forward) on Boucher‘s painting of Marie-Louise O’Murphy.

Oh yes. I read four books: Cities of the Red Night by Burroughs (wonderful bits on addiction and piratry, uses the word surmise a lot), the non-fiction book Sexuality in Western Art (by Edward Lucie-Smith), Erica Jong‘s How to Save Your Own Life (the perfect airport novel but 90 degrees less perfect than the zipless fuck) and the cult fiction classic Breakfast of Champions (Vonnegut’s depiction is so mundane and surreal at the same time, a true classic, comparable in some ways the The Dice Man).