United Colors of Benetton

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1fNsjx1R6I&]

One of the few interesting magazines to come out of the late 20th and early 21st centuries was Colors by Benetton. Their first ever issue in 1991 featured an unwashed newborn baby [1] . Here [2] is an overview of the first 60 issues.

Benetton is nowhere as big a brand today as it was in the 1980s and while I was not exactly taken with their clothes, I did like the ads. I don’t see a comparable contemporary brand such as Tommy Hilfiger kicking this century a conscience.

Benetton Priest kissing a Nun

The mood wasn’t always as serious though, witness this playful update of the nunsploitation theme to the 20th century: a priest kissing a nun.

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.

William Blake @250

The great red dragon and the woman clothed with the sun (c. 1800) – William Blake

William Blake (November 28 1757 – August 12 1827) was an English poet, visionary, painter, and printmaker. Blake was an important proponent of imagination as the modern western world currently defines the word. His belief that humanity could overcome the limitations of its five senses is perhaps one of Blake’s greatest legacies. His words, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite,” (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell) were seen as bizarre at the time, but are now accepted as part of our modern definition of imagination. This quote was the source of the names for both The Doors musical group and Aldous Huxley‘s book The Doors of Perception.

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

Reflections on the Novel by Sade: first English translation?

The Crimes Of Love (1800) – Marquis De Sade [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Reflections on the Novel (French: Une Idée sur les romans) is an essay by Sade first published in 1799 in Les Crimes de l’amour. Its preface features a history of the novel and Sade’s theories on the ‘modern novel‘:

“The modern novel is born with Richardson, Fielding, Rousseau and Prévost. It then procedes to the The Monk and Ann Radcliffe“

Sade goes on to note that “It is Richardson and Fielding who have taught us that only the profound study of the heart of man . . . can inspire the novelist.” And goes on: “If after twelve or fifteen volumes [of Clarissa] the immortal Richardson had virtuously ended by converting Lovelace and having him peacefully marry Clarissa, would you . . . have shed the delicious tears which it won from every feeling reader?”

The essay exists in translations by Geoffrey Gorer and David Coward.

I have been looking for a public domain English translation of this text. Can anyone point me in the direction of the first English language translation?

Update: Wolf’s Hollow: The Marquis de Sade in English.

Lowell Blair seems to be have been the first English translator of Crimes of Love. No mention is made if he also translated the prefatory essay I mention.

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.

Esotika’s exotica

Mike from Esotika introduces himself

I’m currently an undergraduate student in the process of getting my BFA in Photography at Northern Illinois University. … I’m 21 years old and only have a few semesters left before I’ll be applying to graduate schools.