Category Archives: Uncategorized

The history of the future

Loisirs Littéraires au XXe siècle (English: "Literary leasures in the 20th century") is the title of an illustration from the story "The End of Books" by French writer Octave Uzanne and illustrator Albert Robida, a story about a post-literate society in which readers have become 'hearers', consumers of audio books. It was published in the collection Contes pour les bibliophiles (1895). The illustration depicts a female reader of the 20th century, imagined by Robida, who is listening to "12 poètes assortis" (twelve assorted poets) in on the balcony overlooking a future city.

Loisirs Littéraires au XXe siècle (above, English: “Literary leasures in the 20th century”) is the title of an illustration from the story  “The End of Books” by French writer Octave Uzanne and illustrator Albert Robida, a story about a post-literate society in which readers have become ‘hearers,’ i. e. consumers of audio books. It was published in the collection Contes pour les bibliophiles (1895). The illustration depicts a female reader of the 20th century, imagined by Robida, who is listening to “12 poètes assortis” (twelve assorted poets) in on a balcony overlooking a future city.

RIP José Ramón Larraz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7EFyYXcylM

RIP José Ramón Larraz  (1929 – 2013).

After the death of Jesús Franco earlier this year, fellow countryman Larraz was the last survivor of “sexual revolution“-era European exploitation cinema.

Now the two last two last survivors of that sensibility are Radley Metzger (born 1929) and Roger Corman (born 1926).

My first exposure to Larraz was the VHS cover of La visita del vicio (The Coming of Sin). For the infamous Pasiphae scene from La visita del vicio shot scroll to 15′:32”.

Video: Eurotika! Larraz episode (1992).

I’ve previously mentioned Larraz here: https://blog.jahsonic.com/daedalus-devised-a-hollow-wooden-cow/

The Unswept Floor, or, of vestiges and precursors

Earlier this summer, I leafed through Medieval Modern: Art out of Time, which finds precursors of modern art in medieval art.

Apparently vestiges of modern art can be found in ancient art too.

Illustration: The Unswept Floor (detail)

Illustration: The Unswept Floor(detail)

Today, I discovered The Unswept Floor by a certain Herakleitos, a copy of The Unswept Floor 2nd-century BC original mosaic by Sosus of Pergamon described by Pliny in his Natural History (XXXVI, 184):

“[Sosos] laid at Pergamon what is called the asarotos oikos or ‘unswept room,’ because on the pavement was represented the debris of a meal, and those things which are normally swept away, as if they had been left there, made of small tessera of many colours.”

Making a mosaic floor with leftovers of food discarded from the table. How ‘modern’ is that?

I am reminded of Eaten by Marcel Duchamp, one of the snare pictures by Swiss artist Daniel Spoerri, ‘depicting’ the remains of a meal eaten by Marcel Duchamp.

Necrotourism (2)

Inside the Walter Benjamin Memorial (Portbou, Catalonia, Spain; Artist: Dani Karavan)

Inside the Walter Benjamin Memorial (Portbou, Catalonia, Spain; Artist: Dani Karavan, photo Wamito)

Six years ago, I posted a picture of Walter Benjamin’s grave[1], in Portbou, Spain.

One year ago, I stayed for a few days in El Port de la Selva, right next to Portbou, unaware that it was the location of Passages; Homage to Walter Benjamin (above).

Now I want to go back.

See necrotourism or tomb tourism.

 

In praise of artificial ruins

 

A cross section of the Broken Column House at the Désert de Retz as recorded in Les jardins anglo-chinois by Georges-Louis Le Rouge, 1785 [1]

A cross section of the Broken Column House at the Désert de Retz as recorded in Les jardins anglo-chinois by Georges-Louis Le Rouge, 1785

A cross section of the Broken Column House as recorded in Les jardins anglo-chinois by Georges-Louis Le Rouge, 1785 [1].

The Broken Column House (the “colonne brisée”, or ruined column) is an artificial ruin in the French landscape garden Désert de Retz.

Books are dumb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zYkuiw3IV0

Books are dumb.

Dumb as in mute.

That’s what occurred to me when I was reading Rayuela (1963) by Julio Cortázar with all its references to jazz recordings on the drunken nights of the ‘The Serpent Club’.

That’s were Jazzuela (2001) comes in.

The CD brings together the music of Rayuela.

On the turntable (above): Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra – “Save it Pretty Mamma.”

RIP Andre Lewis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4_jWgu2eAs

RIP American musician and producer Andre Lewis (1948 – 2012). He played keyboards for The Mothers of Invention after George Duke left.

Under the pseudonym Mandré, he recorded three space funk LPs, concealing his identity with a space helmet (which looks similar to the helmets used by Daft Punk in their “Get Lucky” single.)

He is best-known for the “space funk” composition “Solar Flight (Opus 1)” (above).

The Man Who Boxed Sex

I spent a considerable amount of time researching Wilhelm Reich over the weekend and I’m not done yet: I’m watching the Austrian documentary film  Wer hat Angst vor Wilhelm Reich? [1] as I write this post. Above is the cartoon “The Man Who Boxed Sex,” a malicious parody of the ‘Orgone energy accumulator’ of Wilhelm Reich. Before leaving this space, be sure to check Kate Bush’s video of “Cloudbusting” (see link below).

These biographical notes are the fruit of my labour:

Wilhelm Reich (24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian psychoanalyst, a member of the second generation of psychoanalysts after Sigmund Freud, and one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry.

He is chiefly remembered for three things. He tried to synthesize Marxism and psychoanalysis in studies of fascism, producing the book, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, inventing Freudo-Marxism. He claimed discovery of what he called orgone energy, which many scientists still dispute and call pseudoscience. The persecution of him and his theories by the Nazi Gestapo in Germany, and later the US government (which burned his books) until his death in a US prison.

Reich continues to influence popular culture. Yugoslavian director Dušan Makavejev made a film about him, W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971) and Kate Bush‘s single “Cloudbusting“[2] (1985) describes Reich’s arrest through the eyes of his son, Peter, who wrote his father’s story in A Book of Dreams (1973); the video for the song features Donald Sutherland as Reich and Bush as Peter.

He was featured in the documentary The Century of the Self (2002) by Adam Curtis.

Sexpol

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897 – 1957) and while researching Freudo-Marxism I investigated him in some greater depth and stumbled upon the acronym Sexpol.

Sexpol is short for Sexualpolitik, German for sexual politics.

And then there is the “Poster de soutien a Sexpol“[1], a promotional poster for the French journal Sexpol (1975-80, an index of all the issues + covers here). It depicts a male baby, touching and looking at his penis.

The right hand side bottom of the poster indicates that the photo comes courtesy Instituto W.R. – Mexico, this is as far as I’ve been able to trace the origin of the photo.

There is a Spanish version[2] of the poster which features the “Manifiesto Sexpol” (1936).

The caption at the bottom left reads:

“It is a question of fully affirming, of aiding and safeguarding, the free and healthy life manifestations of the newborn, of children, adolescents, women and men, in an unmistakable manner which forever excludes any social fraud.”

Wilhelm Reich, The Sexual Revolution, tr. unidentified

Wilhelm Reich is credited with joining Freud and Marx, creating what is now known as Freudo-Marxism. In his book The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Reich argues that sexual repression leads to fascism. It is the origin of the “make love, not war” credo. Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization (1955) built upon Reich and so did Gershon Legman’s magazine Neurotica. Society is mentally ill, say all these tracts, society needs to see a sociatrist.

The funny thing is, they all got it wrong. “The pill” brought short-lived sexual revolution and a new golden dawn for the alpha male, but did not end wars. It only brought on AIDS. How cruel.

See the end of the sexual revolution, about which I have written previously.

Over at my Tumblr page, I’ve posted two covers[2][3] of Reich’s books.