Control by Corbijn

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrFKu3xwTlQ]

On 17 May 2007 Anton Corbijn‘s first feature film Control about the life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis premiered to rave reviews Cannes Film Festival. The film is based on Deborah Curtis’s book Touching From A Distance about her late husband and the new biography Torn Apart by longtime Mancunians Lindsay Reade (Tony Wilson’s ex-wife) and Mick Middles.

Back from Le Crotoy

What I Want by Fireball

Just got back from Le Crotoy where the clip above was a summer hit.

I spent two weeks with my children at Le Crotoy, a coastal village in northern France where Joan of Arc was captured before her execution. We had a wonderful time. I caught up on some reading and finished Georges Wolinski‘s Open Letter to My Wife, Being There by Jerzy Kosiński, Theodore Roszak‘s Flicker (extremely boring novel with interesting bits on the American reception of French theory, the love of films and the Cathars), Kronhausen‘s Pornography and the law: The psychology of erotic realism and pornography (no mention of Sade in a work on obscenity?, interesting texts by Poggio‘s Facetiae (placing him on a par with Aretino and Rabelais)). Also stories by de Maupassant (Le Horla, Tellier and Chevelure), and the exquisite Exquisite Corpse by Robert Irwin (a tale of amour fou reminiscent of Before She Met Me by Julian Barnes). I also managed to skim most of Louis Paul Boon’s historical masterpiece Het Geuzenboek (see Fugger bankers family, the Münster Rebellion).

The girls and me watched Maybe Baby, a comic dramatization of a writer’s own life (and the after-effects when his wife finds out) and the first two and a half episodes of Sex and the City, which was somewhat of an enigma to me (Aids not mentioned until episode 3?) because it was both trite and addictive. I sympathized with Mr. Big, at times loathed Carrie, loved Samantha and Miranda and had a crush on Charlotte.

I bought the 2007 sex special issue of Les Inrockuptibles and found La Beauté du Diable by Roland Villeneuve at the local market.

While I was away, Woebot did a Cutting Records thing, Esotika wrote on Hour of the Wolf by Bergman and Lee Hazlewood and Tony Wilson had died. And I was flattered to find that Simon Reynolds had linked to my blog.

Soldier, soldier

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRas0im-PVM]

Soldier, soldier (1979) – Spizz Energi

Dedicated to DJ Marieke from Antwerp, who usually plays this after Wire’s “I am the fly, the fly in the ointment.”

In search of eroded doorsteps

Doorstep erosion

Eroded doorstep in Antwerp, summer 2007

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fond of eroded doorsteps. For at least 5 years now, I’ve been planning to make pictures of these kind of doorsteps but I had never gotten round to it. Until a couple of weeks ago, when I went with my daughters into the city in search of eroded doorsteps.

Do you have pictures of eroded doorsteps, or eroded marble statues as a result of touching them? Please let me know and post your links in the comments section.

P. S. : erosion and eroded Google galleries.

An ecstatic journey of a boy

Virgin Sperm Dancer by William Levy

Suck special issue (1972) by William Levy

Image sourced here, more here.

The Virgin Sperm Dancer was a Suck magazine special issue by William Levy published in 1972 by Bert Bakker. It was designed by Anthon Beeke and photographed by Ginger Gordon. With Willem de Ridder and Anna Beeke. An ecstatic journey of a boy transformed into a girl for one day only, and her erotic adventures in Amsterdam Magic centrum. Excerpted in London Oz in the same year.

Youtube bricolage

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb_ZcfD-NRw ]

I love Youtube bricolage (the art of remixing “found” video clips and music) and while I’m not particular fond of the soundtrack to the clip above (a Brian Eno remix of the Lopez-track from 808 State’s album Don Solaris), I would still like to share it with you for the film snippets listed below. In case your wondering who 808 State are, here is a badly hissing clip from their best track: Pacific. (And here is a clip from The Beloved and “Sun Rising”, at the time a similar outfit to 808 State)

Film credits (not in chronological order): Belle de Jour 1967 Luis Buñuel La Sindrome Di Stendhal 1996 Dario Argento Merlin 1998 Steve Barron Lola Montes 1955 Max Ophüls Siren 2 2006 SCEI Discovery Channel La Frusta e il Corpo 1963 Mario Bava Les Yeux Sans Visage 1960 Georges Franju Pagan Poetry 2001 Nick Knight Blue Velvet 1986 David Lynch Suspiria 1977 Dario Argento Black Narcissus 1947 Michael Powell Possession 1981 Andrzej Zulawski Onibaba 1964 Kaneto Shindô Kumonosu Jô 1957 Akira Kurosawa Sennen Joyû 2001 Satoshi Kon Death Becomes Her 1992 Robert Zemeckis Die Büchse Der Pandora 1929 Georg Wilhelm Pabst Tanin No Kao 1966 Hiroshi Teshigahara Goh-Hime 1992 Hiroshi Teshigahara The Saddest Music In The World 2003 Guy Maddin Faraon 1966 Jerzy Kawalerowicz The Fountain 2006 Darren Aronofsky Solaris 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky Senso 1954 Luchino Visconti Viy/Вий 1967 Georgi Kropachyov & Konstantin Yershov Tristana 1970 Luis Buñuel La Reine Margot 1994 Patrice Chéreau Mulholland Drive 2001 David Lynch Hausu/House 1977 Nobuhiko Obayashi Inferno 1980 Dario Argento Profondo Rosso 1975 Dario Argento Yôkihi 1955 Kenji Mizoguchi

Redrup v. New York and the end of American censorship

The 1967 Redrup v. New York case is generally considered the end of American censorship. Robert Redrup was a Times Square newsstand clerk who sold two Greenleaf Classics pulp sex novels, Lust Pool [1] and Shame Agent [2] to plainclothes police. He was tried and convicted in 1965.

In true nobrow fashion Hamling did not believe he was selling “commercialized obscenity,” nor would he admit to “titillating the prurient interests of people with a weakness for such expression.” Hamling felt his books were giving people who would never have the skills to read and enjoy Ulysses or Fanny Hill or Naked Lunch what they wanted.

With financial backing from William Hamling, Redrup appealed his case to the Supreme Court where his conviction is over-turned by 7-2. The court’s final ruling on May 8 in 1967 affirmed that materials that were not pandered, sold to minors, or foisted on unwilling audiences were constitutionally protected.

After this decision, the Supreme Court systematically and summarily reversed, without further opinion, scores of obscenity rulings involving paperback sex books, girlie magazines and peep shows.

Tip of the hat to Patrick J. Kearney and thanks to Earl Kemp.