Humid reveries in white smocks

Sadism in the Movies (1965) – George de Coulteray [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Belgian-born/New York-based canonical nobrow writer Luc Sante has a blog called Pinakothek[1]. There is a funny post called “Vile Smut”[2], in which he reviews Sadism in the Movies by George de Coulteray, and comments on a chart[3] reproduced in Lo Duca‘s L’Érotisme au cinéma[4] (J.-J. Pauvert, 1957)

Lo Duca's L'Érotisme au Cinéma

“Take this chart, for example, which is worthy of Edward Tufte‘s books:”
The movies are (1) The Blue Angel, (2) Ecstasy, (3) Tabu, (4) The Lady from Shanghai, (5) Notorious, (6) Bitter Rice, (7) Manon, (8) Los Olvidados, (9) Miss Julie, and (10) One Summer of Happiness. No, I’d never heard of that last one, either. Don’t you wish you could nonchalantly illustrate your humid reveries with charts so rigorously white-smocked? I certainly do.”

I’ve mentioned Luc Sante here [5], when I wrote about Guy Bourdin. Luc Sante has compiled a monograph on Bourdin: Exhibit A: Guy Bourdin (2001).

Encore: various book covers from L’Érotisme au cinéma series by Jean-Marie Lo Duca.

Elsewhere #11

  • Revolt of the Mannequins (original French: “La Révolte des Mannequins”) is a new production by Royal de Luxe, and follows their famous “Sultan’s Elephant” show that was performed in several cities worldwide from 2005 to 2007. In the Revolt of the Mannequins, 13 shop fronts in the city center are transformed into theater stages, where the mannequins perform a 10-day play. Every night, the Royal de Luxe team changes the positions of the mannequins, making the story jump to the next episode. 10 days, and 10 episodes per shop front, lead up to the final Revolt. The show took place in Nantes from October 1st to February 10 2008 and plays in Antwerp on the Meir as De opstand van de Paspoppen for Zva from July 11 to July 20.

Everything feels fucked up. The environment, the economy, war, terrorism, …

It is time for WMC #54

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDCm5A5FTe0]

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want“by Soulwax

I may have dismissed Philip Sherburne‘s piece on the current state of beats too quickly in my recent comment.[1]

The piece came my way via Simon Reynolds[2] a couple of days back:

“Philip Sherburne addresses the malaise in electronic dance culture (i didn’t know the economic side of it had gotten that parlous) and convenes a kind of brain trust to come up with remedies.” —Simon Reynolds

And thus starts Sherburne’s piece:

“Everything feels fucked up. The environment, the economy, war, terrorism, …” —Philip Sherburne [3]

Regarding the economic side Sherburne says:

“Still, dance music is suffering from some very real maladies, many of them economic. Record sales are declining– labels that once could confidently move 1,000 copies of a 12″ single now struggle to sell 250– and legal downloads, while presumably growing, aren’t taking up the slack.”

As I said in my comment I find it hard to imagine that beats are going out of fashion.

Witness these beats set to The Stones‘s “You Can’t Always Get What You Want“[4] remix[5] by Belgian dance-punkers Soulwax. Listen for the choral arrangements by Jack Nitzsche.

Regarding beats going out of fashion from a theoretical point of view.

The beat is a celebration of dance, dance is a celebration of hedonism. Hedonism flourishes in economic booms. Today is an era of poverty. Beats do not fit in poverty. Perhaps. But. Counter example one: the beats of Lindy Hop during Depression America. So evidence inconclusive, but if I had to investigate I would follow the economic boom/malaise route.

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” in its original Stones version is WMC #54

Simon Vinkenoog @80, and, looking for equivalents

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqHsLlmUEeA]
Save the mushrooms (2007) Simon Vinkenoog

Dutch poet Simon Vinkenoog turns 80 today.

Simon can safely be regarded as the Dutch equivalent to Timothy Leary.

I wrote on equivalents here [1]. The concept is simple. Every country has its Woody Allen.

Does your country have an equivalent to Timothy Leary? Please let me known in my comment box.

The Prince copyright controversy and WMC #54

At the 2008 Coachella Music Festival, Prince performed a cover of Radiohead‘s “Creep” but immediately after he forced YouTube and other sites to remove footage that fans had taken of the performance. Thom Yorke of Radiohead, upon hearing about the removal of the video, asked Prince to unblock the song stating “Well, tell him to unblock it. It’s our … song.” –The Prince (TAFKAP) and copyright controversy.

Look around on YouTube, how many TAFKAP clips do you find? That’s right, none. TAFKAP is convinced that if you want to be entertained by him, you have to pay him. He is right of course, even if it does not make him very likable.

Why is he right?

Companies such as YouTube (a Google owned company) are making millions of dollars on the backs of “minor” artists (the long tail) who do not have the funds to employ an army of lawyers to police YouTube in search of their content.

These minor artists should be paid for their work. Tafkap may set a precedent for this to happen.

Take an artist such as Loleatta Holloway[1] (who may be a bad example since she didn’t actually write many compositions herself, but it will do for the sake of the argument). About 124 clips with her voice are featured on YouTube, providing thousands of pageviews for YouTube. Pageviews generate ad revenue. Does Loleatta get paid? No. Does she gain in extra record sales? No, record sales are virtually non-existent since the advent of the internet, everyone downloads1.

The solution?

Micropayments, subscription based YouTubes (one for the the big four, the major record companies who control 70% of the world music market; one for all the independents who control the other 30%); and YouTube setting up a fund for the artists who are missing out on revenue right now.

P.S. It may sound contradictory (especially in regard to my post on The Cult of the Amateur [2], but I enjoy YouTube and its ability to bring unknown artists to my attention immensely, it’s just that I would not mind paying an annual fee to be able to discover them (and not pay to view the majors’ work). I wouldn’t even subscribe to TAFKAP, for that matter, he’s become to MSM to me.

As a bonus, and to extend the contradiction, it’s time for WMC #54.

[Youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=0qX-G-PUwvg]

“Cry to Me” (1975) by Loleatta Holloway.

1) For the record, I never download. I did it for a period of a month back in 2003/2004, lost the 200 songs I had gathered (I hadn’t burned them on cd, in fact I’ve yet to burn my first cd) and have not repeated the experience since I find YouTube satisfactory.

Channeling, hauntology and corporate cannibals

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgMn2OJmx3w]

“Corporate Cannibal” (2008) by Grace Jones

Hurricane is the upcoming tenth studio album by singer Grace Jones and is to be released on 27 October 2008.

Producer Ivor Guest has confirmed that Jones has completed recording her new album, due out in 2008. Participants on the new album are include Island Records usual suspects Sly and Robbie, Brian Eno, Wally Badarou, Tricky, Uzziah ‘Sticky’ Thompson, Mikey ‘Mao’ Chung, Tony Allen, but also new collaborators such as her son Paulo Goude and the Londoner Don-E.

World music classics #51, 52 and 53


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


Ethiopiques is a series of compact discs featuring Ethiopian and Eritrean singers and musicians, best-known for its musical compositions “Erè Mèla Mèla”[1] by Mahmoud Ahmed; and “Yegelle Tezeta”[2] and “Yékèrmo Sèw”[3] by Mulatu Astatke. The music was internationally popularized by Jim Jarmusch when he used a number of songs by Astatke from Ethiopiques Volume 4 (see top) in his film Broken Flowers[4].

“Yegelle Tezeta” is the grooviest track of the three, one most likely to elicit a dance floor response.

Click the numbers to hear the songs/see the trailer.

Addendum

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8ZO3bzEqE4]

Dipsetmuthafucka dances to Astatke

Also, Jahsonic fave Dipsetmuthafucka used a Astatke for a clip he did in Brussels (40 km away from where I live).

And speaking of Brussels, cinephiles, get thee post haste to the Écran Total festival playing all summer at the Cinéma Arenberg.

Elsewhere #10

I’ve finished my catchup reading of the blogosphere:

In a post titled Possession[1], Valter from Surreal Documents writes:

“In a beautifully written and highly interesting recent post[2] on his interview with Mark Stewart for The Wire, Mark K-Punk writes”:
“…one link between the post-punk trio I wrote about in the July issue (Stewart, Mark E Smith, Ian Curtis) is channeling.

I have the impression, that after hauntology, channeling will be the buzzword of internet intelligentsia of late 2008.

Moon river (the blog[3]) presents Alex Kanevsky[4], a figurative painter reminiscent of Bacon.

American blog Simplyfantastico reports on V-necks[5], what I have worn in the first two weeks of July. He says: “V is the new black! …. by V I’m refering to V-Neck T’s. … It’s sexy it’s sleazy it’s trashy it’s classy. … The days of the wife beater (or boy beater) are gone…”

I’m not sure where the wife beater comes in.

Three other blogs that deserve mention are Va Jouer Avec Cette Poussière[6], a fabulous Francophone blog which features juxtapositions of news items with outrageous visuals, and Austrian artist Herbert Pfostl’s two blogs[7], [8].

Trevor Brown has a post[9] on Marilyn Minter.

Cult fiction item #8

I watched the 1999 film adaptation of Breakfast of Champions yesterday evening. I decided to check this film – after having read the delightful novel in Spain a week ago – because I considered the novel unfilmable. Unfilmable because of the book’s tone, which hovers perfectly between the surreal and the very mundane. Unfilmable also because it is an illustrated novel (with crude illustrations by Vonnegut himself, the anus illustration at the beginning sets the tone) and because the novel features many matter-of-fact explanations (what is a cow?, what is earth?, etc.).

The film was written and directed by minor American director Alan Rudolph and stars Bruce Willis, Albert Finney, Nick Nolte and Barbara Hershey. The film was widely panned by critics. It is indeed painful to watch.

Some feebly redeeming elements include the score by Martin Denny, revisiting Barbara Hershey, Glenne Headly in lingerie and the over-the-top cross-dressing scene by Nick Nolte towards the end.

The only way to adapt this unfilmable novel would have been to add at least a third person omniscient voice-over, instead of trying to hide its novelish antecedents.

This [1] unidentified excerpt – from a Vonnegut documentary I presume – is exactly what I have in mind.

Breakfast of Champions (the novel) is cult fiction item #8.

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.