An xtabay is a femme fatale in Mesoamerican mythology.
Sumac was first brought to my attention via Incredibly Strange Music (on outsider music, lounge music and space age pop), but is also listed in David Toop‘s book Exotica: Fabricated Soundscapes in a Real World. Both volumes are recommended.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeFy9S0MKp4]
I mentioned her previously here[3].
Is she a World Music Classic or a guilty pleasure?
In search of nonspace and unthought thoughts.
In search of nonspace and unthought thoughts.
I’ve been mulling over French director Chris Marker‘s Sans Soleil for four days now. The key scene for me was the shooting of the giraffe, which gave its origins away as far as genre-theoretics are concerned.
The key phrase was perhaps the “salute to all unposted letters,” but is safe to say that the film is brilliantly written throughout.
I saw the film at MuHKA on last Saturday, introduced by a Belgian scholar (who?). He stated that the film was unclassifiable, because the “film essay is not a genre but a small category”. However, in my opinion, the film fits the mondo film category, and functions as a highbrow counterpart to Mondo Cane. The film also begs a viewing of the masterwork Blood of the Beasts. But Sans Soleil is a different film altogether. It is a philosophical film that raises questions of medium specificity, multimedia, memory and authenticity.
I have a feeling that Sans Soleil can be invoked to clarify Gilles Deleuze‘s any-space-whatever (see B. C. Holmes – “The Deleuzian Memory of Sans Soleil” [1]), but to prove that would need some more studying of Gilles Deleuze on film.
A History of Derision by way of Illusory Confections who wrote on its subject[1]:
“Be still my beating heart, this is practically everything I adore in one tidy 240 page bundle! But it isn’t referenced anywhere online and I couldn’t even find mention of it on the Atlas Press site. So I zipped an email to Atlas inquiring about it, and, sadly, its nonexistence was confirmed. Apparently it was a planned project that fell to the sidelines and “[1]
the website is the accurate source of what is available, the catalogue part bibliography and part fiction, if you like…
Here it is again in a wikified version,
A History of Derision is an aborted project by Arkhive, an Atlas Press imprint.
It builds on André Breton’s Anthology of Black Humour, but is more a history of French avant-garde.
French Romantics: Sade, Lassailly, Rabbe, Forneret, Nodier, Fourier
Hydropathes: Goudeau, Cros, Haraucourt, Lafargue, Richepin, Tailhade, Rollinat, Monselet, Sapeck, Allais.
Hirsutes and the Chat Noir: Salis, Moréas, Lorrain, Verlaine, Sarcey, Haraucourt.
Arts Incohérents: : Lévy, Rivière, Allais.
Zutistes: Allais, Cros, Nouveau, Rimbaud, Ajalbert, Haraucourt, Verlaine.
La Nouvelle Rive Gauche : Trézenick, D’Aurevilly, Verlaine.
Lutèce: Rall, Rimbaud, Corbière, Caze, Rachilde, Floupette (Vicaire and Beauclair).
Symbolists : de Gourmont, Jarry, Tailhade, Huysmans, Pawlowski.
Ecole de Paris : Apollinaire, Jacob, Salmon, Albert-Birot, Cami.
Dada : Aragon, Picabia, Ribemont-Dessaignes, Satie, Arp, Rigaut.
Surrealism : Desnos, Prévert, Péret, Topor, Magritte, Scutenaire, Daumal, Gilbert-Lecomte.
Situationists : Arnaud and Jorn, Dotremont, Mariën.
Daily Bul & Co: Bury, Béalu, Colinet.
Farcistes: Encyclopédie des farces et attrapes et des mystifications, François Caradec, Noël Arnaud.[2]
Study of Buttocks (c. 1884) by Félix Vallotton
Portrait of Madame X (1884) by John Singer Sargent
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is an 1884 novella by Edwin Abbott Abbott
Les champignons considérés (1884) – Lucien-Marie Gautier
Claude Nicolas Ledoux has the best public domain eye.
The best in the non-public domain area is the eye from Bunuel’s An Andalusian Dog.
French blog Au carrefour étrange has a post on ocular eroticism.
Story of the Eye invariably comes to mind, but to our subject at hand:
I quote from Au carrefour étrange[1] who quotes from La vie sexuelle de Robinson Crusoe:
I love books or films which start with the sexual life of….
Examples in this category include The Sexual Life of Catherine M., The Sexual life of the Belgians, The Sexual Life of the Savages and now this The Sexual life of Robinson Crusoe.
Emmanuel Pierrat has called The Sexual life of Robinson Crusoe a small masterpiece. It is not available in an English translation.
Digression:
Here the An Andalusian Dog eye, just before being slashed, with the beautiful Argentinian tango in the background.
I’ve posted the razor scene before, it’s about the last place online where you can still see the still and the film[3]
Here is the tango scene with a nice colorized pre-razor still of the film.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P17OAI5M4tI]
Un Chien Andalou (1929) – Luis Buñuel [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Un Chien Andalou is World Cinema Classic @69
Goede Raad is Vuur (cover photograph: ‘De Toren van Babel‘ in Ruigoord by Marrit Dijkstra)
Goede Raad is Vuur is a Dutch language poetry anthology and at the same time a theory of poetry, first published by Simon Vinkenoog in 2004.
Simon Vinkenoog is the Dutch Timothy Leary, just as Jean-Jacques Lebel was the French Timothy Leary, see counterparts.
The book is the definitive guide to cult poetry and begs for a English translation.
In this collection for example: “The Right Mask” by Brian Patten in a Dutch translation more powerful than its English original:
One night a poem came up to a poet.
From now on, it said, you must wear a mask.
What kind of mask? asked the poet.
A rose mask, said the poem.
I’ve used it already, said the poet,
I’ve exhausted it.
Then wear the mask that’s made out of
a nightingale’s song, use that mask.
Oh, it’s an old mask, said the poet,
it’s all used up.
Nonsense, said the poem, it’s the perfect mask,
still, try on the god mask,
now that mask illuminates heaven.
It’s a tight mask, said the poet,
and the stars crawl about in it like ants.
Then try on the troubador’s mask, or the singer’s mask,
try on all the popular masks.
I have, said the poet, but they fit so easily.
Wim T. Schippers
This post is mainly intended for people living in Antwerp or the environs.
Tonight, “Pollens, wat een heisa!,” an homage to Dutch artist Wim T. Schippers starts at the Monty in Antwerp.
There are many things to be said about Wim T. Schippers, but since I write this blog in English and most of my readers are from all over the globe, these things will be of interest to few. Suffice it to start by saying that Schippers belongs to the Dutch Dada tradition.
Digression #1
I say Dada because Surrealism is to weak a word; and it can be agreed upon that surrealism was not but an insipid decoction of Dada; Dada having the chronological benefit of course. On the other hand, I realize there is no use bemoaning the insipidness of Surrealism, since Surrealism was its best possible replacement. Nevertheless, Surrealism to my liking has always been too formalistic and dogmatic.
In discussing Schippers, a number of comparisons are called for. In the Dutch language geographical area, we have Doctorandus P. whom I celebrated here[1] and [2] and who is most certainly a precursor of Schippers. Internationally, one can compare Schippers to Monty Python.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_azDvJdRC2Y]
Famous banana clip (I can’t hear you, I have a banana in my ear!)
Now the force of Schippers resides in his mainstream influence, most Dutch-speakers know him without knowing him, he is voice actor of a number of voices of the local version of Sesame Street, most famously Ernie. In The Netherlands he is also known by face as the presenter of a popular science quiz show.
Outside of some dim recollections of his 1970s TV shows, he crossed my personal path each Wednesday afternoon when I listened to his radio show on VPRO (Schippers in the persona of Jacques Plafond (Eng: Jacques Ceiling) [3]. These shows were hilariously irreverent. It was love at first sight.
Shit, I forgot my car, from a Sjef Van Oekel comic
Later still, there were the comics of Sjef Van Oekel, the brain of which was again Schippers.
In Belgium, the Dutch-speaking part where I live, there are two soul brothers of Schippers: Kamagurka and Herr Seele. And perhaps Hugo Matthysen.
To conclude: Schippers is the nobrow example and canonical to this blog, even if you’ve never heard of him, try to find his equivalent in your country.
Ernie’s drol (Ernie’s Turd)
photo Laurens Bontes
Much better than the similar work of Paul McCarthy
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbBRVUjWKUg]
Going to the Dogs -Part 01 – This is the famous play for dogs by Dutch Wim T. Schippers.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAVOOn-Ill4]
The song “Pollens, wat een heisa!,” from which the homage’s title was taken. Notice the naked ladies towards the end
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl0EFJWx-bg]
Phil Bloom, reading the news naked, in 1967 on national television.
Women of Domai is filled with world class instances of gratuitous nudity, such as these hourglass shaped figures [1][2].
Bathing in an almost infantile innocence, Domai’s content[3] is a welcome interruption to the more explicit and sometimes abject stroke material most of us find on our internet travels.
Their editors are have a sense of humor and a level of sophistication:
Unidentified photograph of Fela Kuti
The Nigerian musician Fela Kuti would have celebrated his 70th birthday today, had he not succumbed to the complications of AIDS in 1997.
Like much of my music which I now consider canonical, I discovered him through my house music love story.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgpQNENsmo4]
Digression #1, namesake of “Shakara” track by Fela Kuti, [1] has embedding disabled
He first popped up as the author of “Shakara“[1] on playlists of David Mancuso‘s legendary The Loft. Playlists I discovered of course via the internet.
Cover of a Japanese Fela Kuti compilation album
The pre-internet world was literally a terra incognita. If one found a record by Fela Kuti, one had to find good sources to discover the rest of his releases. Today we’ve moved to a terra cognita. One glance at Discogs is enough to discover the oeuvre of Fela.
What we still need though, in spite of the terra cognita situation, are tastemakers. Biased tastemakers.
Simon Reynolds has blamed the terra cognita thing for the supposed death of the underground, he will be hosting a conference on this soon[2].
He stated on this before:
One more word on Fela. Woebot once said – I paraphrase – “I’ll take King Sunny Adé over Fela Kuti any day. Too much redundancy in Fela.”I disagree. I like long pieces and love Fela’s trance. Which reminds me, I miss Woebot.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMUWn_jRk0E&]
Unidentified clip of Sunny Ade
Here is a quote from that Woebot post:
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaWOTEkExIk&]
“I Am a Madman” by Lee Perry in a dub version remixed by Mad Professor, YouTube bricolage by cinemakramp. The regular version of this song can be found on Perry’s album The Battle of Armagideon.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip23Z0zKrP0]
The film used in the Perry clip is Fists of the Double K by John Woo 1973, his first feature film.
What makes Cinekramp’s choice of footage particularly appropriate is Lee Perry’s fascination with spaghetti westerns.
Speaking of martial arts film, Can dialectics break bricks? is WCC #66
P.S. I’ve recently been celebrating my lifelong love affair with Lee Perry’s work. On a general note on his work, it does not take much imagination to view his work as a strain of black surrealism or even surrealism tout court.
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