Category Archives: underrated

Most of the evening was spent on

Most of the evening was spent on researching JRMS interview[1] with Gilbert Alter-Gilbert:

Genealogy of the Cruel Tale by you.

Gilbert Albert-Gilbert’s Genealogy of the Cruel Tale from Bakunin v.6, 1997) [1]

and especially Gilbert‘s intriguing “Genealogy of the Cruel Tale“[2] a perfect example of the kind of thematic literary criticism I’m rather fond of. The chart reminds of the aestheticization of violence and cruelty in general, of which Nietzsche said:

“One ought to learn anew about cruelty,” said Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil, 229), “and open one’s eyes. Almost everything that we call ‘higher culture‘ is based upon the spiritualizing and intensifying of cruelty….”

For your pleasure, here is the wikified version (information is scarce on the 20th century authors mentioned):

Overview

Genealogy of the Cruel Tale is a chart by American intellectual Gilbert Alter-Gilbert documenting the origins of the cruel tale, which begins etymologically with Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam‘s Contes cruels anthology and has content- and style-wise similarities with cult fiction and horror fiction, Dark Romanticism and the roman frénétique, black humor, transgressive fiction, grotesque literature and folk tales. Sholem Stein says that it is a continuation of the research done by Breton in Anthology of Black Humor. Texts such as Walter Scott‘s On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition, Lovecraft‘s Supernatural Horror in Literature, Mario Praz‘s Romantic Agony and Todorov’s The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre also come to mind. Notably absent is Sade.

Taxonomy

Introducing A Journey Round My Skull

I’ve briefly mentioned the Anglophone litblog A journey round my skull in my previous post[1]. Today is the day to give this wonderful blog[2] a proper introduction.

The occasion is the blog’s recent post[3] on Xenos Books‘ translation of the 1932 Scarecrow & Other Anomalies by Argentine poet Oliverio Girondo.

The blog takes its name[4] from Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy‘s autobiographical novel A Journey Round My Skull (which reminded me of Maistre’s A Journey Around My Room) and is self-described as an “unhealthy book fetishism from a reader, collector, and amateur historian of forgotten literature.” Cult fiction and experimental literature receive encyclopedic treatment. This encyclopedism does not preclude lack of actual experience. Like myself, Will (the first name of its author), is in the habit of posting about books he has not yet read but is investigating for future reference:

“I haven’t read all the books I’m listing on this blog (including this one and Karinthy‘s Grave and Gay …). I realized that I gather a lot of information about books before I buy them, but never record this research. Writing about books in my collection is forcing me to research them again. This time I’ll have a record. When I do finally get a chance to read the book, I’ll re-post the entry with my comments.”[5]

The blog features information on cult fiction from the likes of Gilbert Alter-Gilbert[6], Marianne Thalmann[7], Clemens Brentano[8], Roger Caillois[9], Jean Paul[10], Robert Walser[11][12][13], Marcel Schwob[14], Johannes R. Becher[15], P.F. Thomése[16], Julien Gracq[17] and Joao Guimaraes Rosa[18], as well as informative profiles on French science-fiction[19], erotica[20] and cheap avant garde books[21].

The blog leads to ubiquitous connections …


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The book above, with an interesting preface by Xenos Books:

“The crazy thing is so spectacularly original that even though alerted by my advance notice you are still going to be more surprised by Scarecrow than by anything else you have ever read in your life, even if you are ninety-five and have spent every free moment fiendishly consuming all of the most fantastic symbolist, futurist, cubist, surrealist, expressionist, anarchist, dadaist, existentialist, creationist, ultraist, vanguardist, magical realist, modernist, postmodernist and every other -ist compositions that you could lay your hands on, plus the farthest-out non-ist compositions as well, including Lucian‘s True Story, Rabelais‘ Adventures of Gargantua and Pantagruel and Fyodor Dostoyevsky‘s Bobok. There is no way that you can prepare for the experience of coming face to face with Girondo’s scarecrow.” –from the Anti-Preface of Karl Kvitko

… leads to a film it inspired in 1994:

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PokBvBXrT3U]

The Dark Side of the Heart (1994), directed by Eliseo Subiela.

(Spanish language, but be sure to watch until the end)

See previous Jahsonic introductions.

Introducing Barry Burman (1943-2001)

Beham, Hans SebaldTartan_Ribbon, the first colour photographBarry Burman
Which one is Burman? Click.

Salome by British artist Barry Burman (1943-2001)[1] via Trevor Brown[2] . Trevor notes Burman’s work as a personal inspiration after reading Peter Webb‘s The Erotic Arts and makes a comparison to the work of Graham Ovenden. Burman committed suicide in 2001.

Notes of the previous days:

2008 August 1

Valter of Surreal Documents has written the first post in a series devoted to Stefan Jaworzyn‘s exploitation film fanzine Shock Xpress. These posts will present to you YouTube videos of the films featured in the three books which collect the fanzine’s best articles. He starts with biographical information on Jaworzyn.[4]

The previous thematic outing of Valter was centered around Exotica by Toop[5].

2008 August 2

Web 2.0 is slowly becoming a reality. WordPress, Flickr, YouTube, Last.fm, Del.icio.us, LibraryThing and Facebook made me realize that. I need an API-driven platform that can integrate the aforementioned, with my wiki as backbone. Things such as Spinlets which let you create “mashups“. Something as easy to use as the defunct Hypercard, which was my first hypertext experience, in the pre-internet days. It would allow Amazon.com integration for my Wiki too.

2008 August 3

On the difference between nakedness and nudity .

I am sceptical that Leiber and Stoller wrote “Hound Dog“. They probably heard it in an African American Vernacular English version in a juke joint (I heard a version not so long ago which went “you ain’t looking for a woman, you just looking for a ho“), bowdlerized it and released it in a version palatable to the WASP crowd. Cfr. Elvis‘s “One Night (song)” and Cole Porter‘s “I Get a Kick Out of You“. The latter had its drug reference “I get no kick from cocaine,” changed to “I get perfume from Spain,” for radio airplay, the earlier was first titled “One Night of Sin.”

Most therapists have knowledge of psychology but too many of them are at a loss when it comes to philosophy. Most culturati look to philosophy and sociobiology rather than psychology for an answer to “meaning of life.” Contemporary therapists who wish to cater for a sophisticated crowd should watch I Heart Huckabees, read about existential humanism and existential therapy, and study Emmy van Deurzen and others on the Passion Paradox.

See also, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

Saw Demonlover, my second and hopefully last film of Assayas. The previous one was Irma Vep … just as terrible. The only redeeming element Demonlover was the introduction of the concept of Hellfire Club. Even the SY soundtrack is barely audible. Glad I got to see Chloë Sevigny, aka miss Brown Bunny.

2008 August 4

The Fold is a new web-based film series written by husband-and-wife writing team, Ray Sawhill and Polly Frost. It will be viewable at http://www.thefold.tv as from now. It is an erotically-based science fiction series.

Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn dies

Happy birthday Luigi Colani

The earth is round, all the heavenly bodies are round; they all move on round or elliptical orbits. This same image of circular globe-shaped mini worlds orbiting around each other follows us right down to the microcosmos. We are even aroused by round forms in species propagation related eroticism. Why should I join the straying mass who want to make everything angular? I am going to pursue Galileo Galilei’s philosophy: my world is also round. — Luigi Colani.

Car Styling 23 Luigini Colani special by you.

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There is one available now at Amazon.de, 69 EUR.

European designer Luigi Colani turns eighty today.

I can’t remember the first time Colani came upon my radar, but it must have been in the various design books I read in my twenties, this was in the 1985-1995 period. He – and his celebration of curvilinearity (one of the faultlines in 20th century art) – remain paramount in my design canon.

Modern and contemporary designers in this tradition include Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Isamu Noguchi, Carlo Mollino and Marc Newson.

Connecting keywords are non-Euclidean geometry, ferrocement, organic design. [I must look into this non-Euclidean geometry thing, some interesting connections are bound to appear]

Also of interest is the survey of Eric Hunting, ‘The Classic Rock Realm of Ferro-Cement’[1].

Around that same period I bought a monograph of Colani’s work, a special issue of Japanaese Car Styling magazine, #23. Personally, I prefer his non-car styling designs and the issue of Car Styling aforementioned features some rare works of eroticism (ceramics, photography, drawings) and sanitary ware by Villeroy and Boch.

The cover of that magazine is noticeable for its Böcklin typeface.

Previously on Jahsonic: Lost and found: biomorphism

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.

Introducing Stan Vanderbeek

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1si3JxfYuBA]

Symmetrics (music credits anyone? Possibly Ravi Shankar?)

I don’t think I’ve mentioned American experimental filmmaker Stan Vanderbeek (1927 – 1984) on this blog. Today, I found his Symmetrics[1] of 1972 on YouTube. Vanderbeek is one of those artists I discovered in the post-internet days. Before the advent of YouTube this usually meant reading about him only, apart from the occasional still one might find on the net, such as this[2] very nice one.

Actually seeing Vanderbeek’s output on YouTube has proven to be very rewarding, especially after my disappointment in seeing much-read-about works Wavelength[3] by Michael Snow (born 1929) and that other overrated “structural film” Serene Velocity[4] by Ernie Gehr (born 1943).

These two last ones are deadly serious and devoid of any sense of humor; works such as Achooo Mr. Kerrooschev (1960) [5] by Vanderbeek are anything but that.

Click the numbers to see, hear.

If you like the work of Vanderbeek, you may also enjoy Len Lye.

World music classics #39, 40 and 41

Beastie Boys - Cooky puss
Beastie Boys – Cooky puss
04:30
Added: 6 months ago
From: iwillluvher
Views: 7,489
Ciccone Youth -
Ciccone Youth – “Into the Groovey”
02:47
Added: 3 months ago
From: dipsetmuthafucka
Views: 2,381
Liquid Liquid -
Liquid Liquid – “Cavern” 1983
04:38
Added: 6 months ago
From: tertolkin
Views: 7,336

Background info:

Notes: There is a better version on Youtube of “Cavern” (sound-wise), but the one featured here has the original music video, and the only one commissioned by New York record label 99 Records. “Cooky Puss” was a revelation when it came out, and my first exposure to the Beastie Boys. “Into the Groove(y)” was also my first exposure to SY, there are two alternative versions of this Madonna spoof/cover.

If you have the time, check dipsetmuthafucka‘s Youtube channel, he, or rather his musical selection, is the incarnation of taste.

IoEA #25: man’s most honest organ

“Sensitive but resilient, equally available during the day or night with a minimum of coaxing, it has performed purposefully if not always skillfully for an eternity of centuries, endlessly searching, sensing, expanding, probing, penetrating, throbbing, wilting, and wanting more. Never concealing its prurient interest, it is man’s most honest organ.” —Thy Neighbor’s Wife, (1981), Gay Talese.

It’s time for the 25th installment in our series of mini-articles on icons of erotic art. Today’s item is an unabashed tribute to man’s most honest organ, that wonderful extension to the human male’s groin, the wondrous complex of bulging blood vessels, the source of pride of alpha through zeta males: the penis. Here represented by Le Dieu Priape[1] (ca. 1779 – 1795) by French visionary architect and draughtsman Jean-Jacques Lequeu, it shows a large, elegant and powerful phallus. Calling it a phallus, makes it clear that the penis is erect, because let’s face it, in a flaccid state our pride is pretty preposterous.

Staying on the subject of penises, most recently Trevor Brown showed eyeing[2][3] instances of the male and female anatomy by the 21st century fantaste Paul Rumsey.

P.S. The quote of Thy Neighbor’s Wife by Gay Talese came my way via a Dutch translation of Louise Kaplan’s recently acquired Female Perversions, from the first cursory reading, a very good study of female sexual behavior and its representation in psychoanalytic theory and western literature and Emma Bovary in particular.

World cinema classics #48

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWHOhoFgs84&]

Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981) by Marco Ferreri [off-line]

I’ve been waiting quite a long time to be able to show a clip of Tales of Ordinary Madness by Marco Ferreri (La Grande Bouffe), one of the most devastatingly beautiful films to have crossed my retina when I saw it about 5 years ago.

Memorable scenes include Ornella Muti putting an oversized safety pin to some rather startling uses, and a listful cat and mouse game between Ben Gazzara and Susan Tyrrell which results in Gazarra’s arrest when you least expect it. Some hold the Ornella Muti scenes as some of the most erotic ever confided to celluloid, I’ll take the Tyrrell/Gazzara encounter any day.

The film’s title and subject matter are based on the works and the person of US poet Charles Bukowski.

See also WMC#13.

Update: a few hours after I posted the clip, it was taken down by the “user.”

Introducing August Darnell


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August Darnell aka Kid Creole (Montreal, Canada, 12 August, 1950) is a Canadian musician who has been involved in several dance-oriented projects in New York in the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s. Projects include Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band[0] (led by Darnell’s brother Stony), Don Armando’s Second Avenue Rhumba Band[1], Gichy Dan’s Beechwood #9, the “mutant disco” of Aural Exciters and, of course, Kid Creole and the Coconuts[2], as well as “solo” projects involving Andy “Coati Mundi” Hernandez[2,5], Taana Gardner[3], Fonda Rae[4]. and Lizzy Mercier Descloux[5]. Some of the more (and less)obscure offerings of Darnell have been released on an music compilation in 2008 by Strut Records as Going Places: The August Darnell Years 1976-1983.

Click the number to listen to the tracks, not all tracks are Darnell projects, but also just of the artists mentioned.

Fonda Rae in Machine’s “There but for the Grace of God Go I”[4] is world music classic 38, and has an interesting bit of music censorship history behind it, perhaps more on that later.