Yearly Archives: 2009

International Women’s Day

International Woman's Day We_Can_Do_It!

We Can Do It! poster by J. Howard Miller

Today is International Women’s Day.

Woman is the original other.

All men are jealous of her.

“All men- even … Jesus himself- began as flecks of tissue inside a woman’s womb. Every boy must stagger out of the shadow of a mother goddess, whom he never fully escapes….Women have it. Men want it. What is it? The secret of life…”(Vamps & Tramps p. 32) – Camille Paglia

Pro feminism:

“Because they will try to convince us that we have arrived, that we are already there, that it has happened. Because we need to live in the place where we are truly alive, present, safe, and accounted for. Because we refuse to allow our writing, songs, art, activism, and political histories to be suppressed or stolen. Because we refuse to be embarrassed about the mistakes and faults and choose to move forward with a political agenda bent on the freedom of all.” —Tammy Rae Carland in Tres Bien by Le Tigre.

Contra feminism:

“The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” Pat Robertson, 1992

RIP Henri Pousseur (1929 – 2009)

RIP Henri Pousseur (1929 – 2009)

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdpzmgtIHr4]

“Chevauchée fantastique“

The shortest way from Mozart to Pierre Boulez, by the Belgian composer Henri Pousseur (extract from his opera “Your Faust“). La “Chevauchée fantastique“[1]

Henri Pousseur was known for such compositions as Chevauchée fantastique. He wrote in the “acousmatic” tradition of 20th century classical music.

Beginning around 1960, Henri Pousseur collaborated with Michel Butor on a number of projects, most notably the opera Votre Faust (1961–68).

Crime scenes fake and true

Crime scenes by Melanie Pullen by you.

“Half Prada” from High Fashion Crime Scenes.
(c) Melanie Pullen (in the public domain as long as the orignal author is credited)

I find Melanie Pullen‘s High Fashion Crime Scenes[1] photo series by E-L-I-S-E. Pullen is a thirtiesh American photographer noted for her series based on the reenactment of true crime scenes.

I decide to investigate.

The first thought that entered my mind is that obviously, Pullen is influenced by the aesthetics of French photographer Guy Bourdin[2], especially his take on the aestheticization of violence.

I continue searching.

A trip to the Tomorrow Museum (searching for Pullen/Jahsonic) brings  Luc Sante‘s Evidence: NYPD Crime Scene Photographs: 1914- 1918.

I hear an echo of Weegee‘s work.

Can Pullen be classified as crime photography?

And then, the work of Ashley Hope![3] Her paintings are based on crime scene photographs of murdered women, exclusively. Transgressive.

Erotic memoirs fake and true

I’m experiencing a sudden outburst of graphomania.

Though I meant to review the wonderful Feuchtgebiete[1] after I’d read Catherine Millet and Toni Bentley, I decided to publish this piece on erotic memoirs now after finding the (fake) erotic memoirs of Anne-Marie Villefranche. Reading Millet and Bentley will have to wait.

Joie D'amour (1983) by Villefranche in the erotic memoir series by you.

Joie d’amour by Anne-Marie Villefranche

From my wiki on erotic memoirs:

Erotic memoirs include those of Casanova‘s Histoire de ma vie from the eighteenth century, ‘Walter’s My Secret Life from the nineteenth, Frank Harris‘s My Life and Loves (1922-27) from the twentieth and Catherine Millet‘s The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (2001), One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed (2003) by Melissa Panarello, Toni Bentley‘s The Surrender : An Erotic Memoir (2004) and Feuchtgebiete (2008) by Charlotte Roche from the twenty-first.

Notice the preponderance of female writers and protagonist (a tradition since the whore dialogues). For a male point of view, check the work of Henry Miller. And ooops … I almost forgot Anaïs Nin.

I continue form my wiki with erotic memoirs of the 19th century.

Sensational journalism such as W.T. Stead‘s The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon (1885) about the procuring of underage girls into the brothels of Victorian London has also provided a stimulus for the erotic imagination. Stead’s account was widely translated and the revelation of “padded rooms for the purpose of stifling the cries of the tortured victims of lust and brutality” and the symbolic figure of “The Minotaur of London” confirmed European observers worst imaginings about “Le vice anglais” and inspired erotic writers to write of similar scenes set in London or involving sadistic English gentlemen. Such writers include D’Annunzio in Il Piacere, Paul-Jean Toulet in Monsieur de Paur (1898), Octave Mirbeau in Jardin des Supplices (1899) and Jean Lorrain in Monsieur de Phocas (1901).

Update:

Here is a mini-review I wrote on February 17th of Feuchtgebiete:

I have started reading Feuchtgebiete. A very dry, cold and realistic style, almost devoid of poetics. The first page mentions an anal orgasm. There is a memorable scene where the protagonist and her friend take a great deal of drugs from a dealer-friend’s stash, later puke because it was too much, find that many of the pills had not been digested and drink their vomit all up again.

Daedalus devised a hollow wooden cow

A minotaur is a legendary half-creature.

The Minotaur by George Frederic Watts 1817-1904 by you.

George Frederic Watts‘s The Minotaur

George Frederic Watts paints The Minotaur in 1885[1].

In 1898 Klimt contributed the poster “Theseus and the Minotaur“[2] to the first Vienna Secession group exhibition, a poster rich in symbolic meaning. The fig-leaf was deliberately missing, which caused some controversy.

The Minotaur creature was the offspring of a certain Queen Pasiphae and a white bull. The myth goes thus: after one of Poseidon‘s angry spells which caused Pasiphae to be overcome with a fit of madness in which she fell in love with the bull, Pasiphae went to Daedalus for assistance, and Daedalus devised a way for her to satisfy her passions. He constructed a hollow wooden cow covered with cowhide for Pasiphae to hide in and allow the bull to mount her. The result of this union was the Minotaur.

Looking for more minotaurs brings up Michael Parkes‘s one[3].

Update: a wikified comment by Paul Rumsey.

Watts was inspired to paint this picture by reading “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” by William Thomas Stead. The tiny bird crushed in the hand of the minotaur is symbolic of the child prostitute.

Update: Last night, before falling asleep the image of the below VHS cover sprang to mind.

The Coming of Sin (1978) by Spanish Eurotrash director José Ramón Larraz. The cover of the VHS echoes the union of Pasiphaë and the bull that produced the Minotaur.

The Coming of Sin (1978)  José Ramón Larraz

Folon @75

Folon @75

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okVU6v8phzY]

Final credits by Folon for Antenne 2 from 1975 to 1984

Jean-Michel Folon (March 1, 1934, Uccle, Belgium – October 20, 2005, Monaco) was a Belgian artist, illustrator, painter, and sculptor. Folon was born in Brussels in 1934 where he studied architecture. In 1955 he settled in a gardener’s house in the outskirts of Paris. During five years he drew morning, noon and night. In 1985 he moved to Monaco where he worked in a big workshop surrounded by numerous artists.

Folon celebrated the hybrid businessman/white-collar worker as much as his fellow Belgian artist Magritte did (see Magritte’s The Son of Man[1], a bourgeois man in a suit and the same type of fellow in this[[2]] Folon sculpture where he is holding a briefcase).

Perhaps Folon was the last Belgian surrealist although his naive watercolor work is sui generis.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YpbKnr4iJE]

Idiots and Angels

I think he’s underrated today but his work is still of influence. Most recently there was Bill Plympton‘s Idiots and Angels of which the author acknowledges the influence of Topor, Folon (the flying men) and of Crumb.

Young Lust (1971-1972)


The Young Lust Reader (1974) [Amazon.com]
[FR] [DE] [UK]

Young Lust is an underground comics anthology series co-founded by Bill Griffith and Jay Kinney.

Young Lust (1971-1972), an underground comics anthology series co-founded by Bill Griffith and Jay Kinney.

It featured stories and art by Bill Griffith, Jay Kinney, Art Spiegelman, “Pap Schmeer” (Landon Chesney), Roger Brand, Justin Green, Jim Osborne, Ned Sonntag, Spain Rodriguez, Nancy Griffith, R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, and Jay Lynch.

For more visuals see[1][2][3] (that last one is the best one).

From the back cover of its reader:

“Once you have experienced YOUNG LUST you’ll never be able to look at another “True Love Romances” in the eye again without cracking up. To have all three YOUNG LUSTS under one cover is almost too much to take!” – Ed Ward, City Magazine
“Occasionally something comes along that too good not to mention like YOUNG LUST, the series of mock-sexploitation comic books that parody perfectly the picaresque sexuality of teenage female cartoon fantasies!! – Howard Smith, Village Voice
“In this world there are three things we can be sure of debt, taxis and YOUNG LUST!!” – David Ossman, Firesign Theatre
“YOUNG LUST is almost impossible to read. You get halfway through the first story when suddenly you are rolling on the floor laughing your head off! Affords the whole family endless hours of pants-pissing entertainment!!” – Dean Latimer, East Village Other B&W