Category Archives: 1001 things to do before you die

World music classics #15

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kphP-YDwE8Y]

Juxtapoem: Sylvester James‘s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and Pierre Janet‘s reality principle. An interesting side effect of the common mental illness known as falling in love is the feeling of recapturing a sense of reality.

Nineteen years ago today, Sylvester died aged 40 of complications from AIDS.

See previous entries in this series.

Icons of erotic art #8

Zygotic Acceleration, Biogenetic, De-Sublimated Libidinal Model (Enlarged x 1000) (1995) [1] is a sculpture by Jake and Dinos Chapman. It depicts lifesize fibreglass mannequins of children with genital organs of both sexes attached to their faces. It was shown at the Sensation exhibition in 1997, along with Great Deeds Against the Dead.

Sexual organs attached to faces is something I have been pondering on for as long as I can remember. What would have been the solution of the human race if this had been the case? How would we have covered the “pubic” area? How would lovemaking have looked like? This work by the Chapmans is remarkable, as is much of their other work. No doubt they are one of the most interesting contemporary artists.

In case you have been wondering why I only link to the pictures in this series, instead of showing the artworks in-line, the answer is that I keep a strict copyright policy after having had a run-in with my local copyright enforcement agency, SABAM, about two years ago. Since then, I only publish artworks by artists who have been dead for more than seventy years. Such is the law in Belgium. Belgian copyright law is even so strict that it prohibits to show photographs of buildings.

I find the use of mannequins in contemporary art very appealing, other works which have used this form are Chair, Table and Hat Stand by Allen Jones and Great Deeds Against the Dead, also by the Chapmans.

Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.

 

Cult fiction #2

The Diceman (1971) – Luke Rhinehart

[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

The Dice Man is a comedic novel published in 1971 by George Cockcroft under the pen name Luke Rhinehart and tells the story of a psychiatrist who begins making life decisions based on the casting of dice. The novel is noted for its subversivity, anti-psychiatry sentiments and for reflecting moods of the early 1970s. Due to its subversive nature and chapters concerned with controversial issues such as rape, murder and sexual experimentation, it was banned in several countries. Upon its initial publication, the cover bore the confident subheader, “This book can change your life” and quickly became a modern cult classic.

Previous entries in this series.

 

World music classics #14

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7dAxvj2mlU]

Rockit (1983) – Herbie Hancock

I believe I’d never seen the Godley & Creme video to this song before. What a strange affair. Definitely a work of the uncanny, celebrating disembodied body parts and general weirdness.

Also check one of my guilty pleasures: “I’m Not in Love” by 10cc. I love the soundscapes of that one.

See previous entries in this series.

Icons of erotic art #7

Although French artist Francis Picabia’s work from the 1940s such as [1], [2], [3] and Woman with Bulldog [4]; which borrowed generously from soft-core pornography, is a much more likely candidate for the Icons of erotic art series, today I wish to celebrate Picabia’s entirely unerotic 1915 work: Portrait of an American Girl in the Nude[5], a drawing which depicts a spark plug supposedly representing Agnes Meyer. It is a satirical homage to the machine age and the American pin up girl.

Images sourced at Lemateurdart and K-Punk.

Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.

This entry also counts as the 15th significant artwork of the 20th century.

Cult fiction #1

Musk, Hashish and Blood

Musk, Hashish and Blood

Musk, Hashish, and Blood is a French language collection of tales by Hector France, translated into English By Alfred Allinson, designed and etched by Paul Avril.

Its original title was Sous le Burnous (1886).

The book is mentioned in Sax Rohmer‘s Dope:

“Which of these three rooms you choose?” she asked, revealing her teeth in one of those rapid smiles which were mirthless as the eternal smile of Sin Sin Wa.
“Oh,” said Rita hurriedly, “I don’t know. Which do you want, Mollie?”
“I love this end one!” cried Mollie. “It has cushions which simply reek of oriental voluptuousness and cruelty. It reminds me of a delicious book I have been reading called Musk, Hashish, and Blood.”
“Hashish!” said Mrs. Sin, and laughed harshly. “One night you shall eat the hashish, and then–”
She snapped her fingers, glancing from Rita to Pyne.
“Oh, really? Is that a promise?” asked Mollie eagerly.
“No, no!” answered Mrs. Sin. “It is a threat!”

Richard Francis Burton mentions it in the comments to his translation of The Book of One Thousand and One Night:

“All the splendour and squalor, the beauty and baseness, the glamour and grotesqueness, the magic and the mournfulness, the bravery and the baseness of Oriental life are here: its pictures of the three great Arab passions, love, war and fancy, entitle it to be called “Blood, Musk and Hashish.””

From a description by Alexander Books, its most recent publisher:

This graphic and exciting picture of the Algerian desert, its tribes and their astounding customs is a sensational recounting of France’s experiences in North Africa. With little hyperbole describing his fascinating life, France tells the stories of his adventures in the nineteenth century Arab world from an eyewitness view that is as exciting today as it was a century ago. Not much is known of Hector France, except that he lived an adventurous life and wrote about it with style and gusto. When this book was first printed in a limited edition of only 500 copies in Britain in 1900, France felt, perhaps with some cause, that many of the things he described would have sent his Victorian readership into shock. Yet there is a certain romance to be discovered amid the exquisitely described barbarism, an exoticism that cannot be found in today’s world.

This post is part of a new series: cult fiction

World cinema classics #26

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSho9nlXRkk]

The Intruder (1962) – Roger Corman

The Intruder is a 1962 American film directed by Roger Corman, after a novel by Charles Beaumont, starring William Shatner. Also called Shame in US release, and The Stranger in the UK release. The story centers around the machinations of a racist named Adam Cramer (portrayed by Shatner), who arrives in the fictitious small southern town of Caxton in order to incite townspeople to racial violence against the town’s African-American minority and court-ordered school integration.

The Intruder is the greatest irony of Roger Corman’s film career, after cranking out dozens of exploitation films he put up his own resources to produce a serious work of drama on the explosive issue of racism and integration. The film went on to win rave reviews and film festival prizes but became Corman’s first film to lose money.

Similarly themed fiction includes I Spit On Your Graves.

Previous “World Cinema Classics” and in the Wiki format here.

LateNightTales

Fat Boy Slim, Late Night Tales

Late Night Tales: Fatboy Slim (2007) – Azuli Records.

Late Night Tales: Fatboy Slim is the 19th DJ mix album, released in the Late Night Tales series on Azuli Records. It was mixed by British DJ, Fatboy Slim. Hi-lites include “Blue Skies” [1] by Willie Nelson, “I’ll Keep A Light In My Window” by Ben Vereen and “From a Logical Point of View” by Robert Mitchum. Recommended.

Late Night Tales and its predecessor Another Late Night are the names of two related series of DJ mix albums released on Azuli Records independent record label. The tracks on the albums are selected and mixed by a diverse selection of DJs, recording artists, and bands, asked by Azuli “to compile an album of their favorite music that inspired them to make music their profession – their favorite of the favourites”. The series is also noted for its imaginative cover designs, the designer of which is as of yet unidentified. Anyone?

Icons of erotic art #6

The work I present today is erotic and sad at the same time. Its eroticism is implied by its transgression, most transgressions are erotic by nature. For its sadness, you only need to look at the facial expressions of Valie, the “toucher” and the bystander.

Valie Export‘s Tapp- und Tast-Kino (“Touch Cinema”) a piece of performance “body art”, was performed in ten European cities in 1968-1971.

Valie Export built a tiny “movie theater” around her naked upper body, so that her body could not be seen but could be touched by anyone reaching through the curtained front of the “theater”. She then went into the street and invited men, women, and children to come and touch her.

The context of “Touch Cinema” was the bra burning feminism professed by New York Radical Women and Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch.

World music classics #12

Where Did You Sleep Last Night  (1870s) – traditional

I wanted to let you hear the version that made this song popular to me, by my favourite Charlie Feathers (who recorded it on the French label New Rose Records in the late 1980s), but it’s not available on Youtube. The clip above mixes between Lead Belly (who made it popular in 1944) and Nirvana (who made it popular in the late 20th century). The lyrics are difficult to grasp: a girl is unfaithful, a man is decapitated, his body never found.

From Youtube:

“Cobain started to love leadbelly after the words of his biggest hero William S. Burroughs :
(Kurt Cobain’s words) “I remember him saying in an interview, “These new rock’n’roll kids should just throw away their guitars and listen to something with real soul, like Lead Belly.””