One of the 15.000 nazi bunkers along the Atlantic coast; this one at Cap Blanc Nez, Northern France where I just spent a couple of days.
The best collection of photographs of the Atlantic Wall is by Paul Virilio:
Bunker Archeology: Texts and Photos (1975) – Paul Virilio [Amazon US] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) was an American writer.
In some of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels, when somebody dies, Vonnegut does not call it dying. He writes that this person had their “peephole closed” and when they are born, they simply have their “peephole opened”.
To my girls, Bonnie, Fee, Fara (from left to right)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAIIogcH49I
LUX – The Chapman brothers at Tate Modern.
Lux is a television show on culture presented by my youth hero Luc Janssen. His radio show Krapuul Deluxe was highly influential and he has been described as Belgium’s answer to John Peel. Recently, Janssen has fallen out of favour, especially since an interview I read with him in De Morgen where he said something stupid about the identity-creating-capabilities of owning a Le Corbusier chair.
Who is Kriminal?
Also, “The Bleeding Tree” launches The Trashy Movie Celebration Blog-a-thon, for which I’d like to propose this — rather analytical — contribution. For a real essay, head down to Esotika Erotica Psychotica.
Soul Jazz presents: New York Latin Hustle (2007) – Various
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
New York’s melting pot of Puerto Rican, Cuban and Afro-American musicians led to stunning culture clashes in the 1960s and 70s when Latin styles mixed with Funk, Disco, Soul and Jazz to produce new hybrids such as Boogaloo, Latin Jazz, Disco and Salsa. All these are featured in Soul Jazz Records latest journey into Latin music, New York Latin Hustle.
The record features all the kings of Latin music – Tito Puente, Machito, Eddie Palmieri, Candido, Ray Barretto and many more, alongside rarer, lesser known names.
In the 1960s Fania Records and Tico Records released stunning Latin Boogaloo, Descargas, Latin Soul from the emerging New York Latin scene. In the 1970s, Salsoul Records similarly mixed Salsa, Soul and Funk to release stunning Latin Disco crossover material such as Candido’s ‘Dancin and Prancin’, which would go on to be a million seller.
New York Latin Hustle brings all this together and features Latin music from all these styles, labels and eras.
The album comes with extensive sleeve-notes and exclusive photography. –Soul Jazz
On an entirely different note, I’d like to introduce this album:
Brossa d’Ahir (1977) – Pep Laguarda & Tapineria
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
What do I know of this album? Nothing much except that it was produced or engineered by Daevid Allen (Soft Machine, Gong), that it sounds somewhat like this, that it’s sung in Mallorquí (Majorcan Catalan), that my brother discovered it via Jens Lekman and that it is recommended for Joanna Newsom fans.
Valter’s Surreal Documents is an excellent blog on subversive surrealism as professed by Georges Bataille and the Acéphale group. Recent subjects have included Alice Coltrane, Coffin Joe, books acquired and Nico. The blog can now be accessed from my blogroll.
I quote from the Acéphale post:
… the Jean Rollin who participated in this issue of “La Revue Acéphale” is of course not Jean Rollin, who was born in 1938 and couldn’t possibly have contributed any articles to this “La Revue Acéphale” (I just corrected the error in Wikipedia).
In fact, it was the filmmaker’s father who contributed to the publication. The father was also called Jean Rollin. Jean Rollin’s mother, Denise Rollin-Le Gentil, had an (extramarital) relationship with Georges Bataille from october 1939 to the end of 1943.
Tohill and Tombs’ “Immoral Tales. Sex & Horror Cinema In Europe 1956-1984” suggest that years later Jean Rollin (the filmmaker, that is), would remember the bedtime stories that Bataille told him, about ‘Monsieur le Curé’, a wolf dressed in the robes of a priest.
How I would like to have heard those stories!
More on Denise Rollin-Le Gentil:
On 2 October 1939, [Georges Bataille] meets Denise Rollin-Le Gentil, who is 32 and married with a young son, Jean. Surya writes, ‘She was beautiful, a beauty that would be described as melancholy if not taciturn. She spoke little or, for long periods not at all’. She joins him at his flat in October; thereafter, Bataille will spend time in her flat at 3 rue de Lille.
[In 1945, Maurice] Blanchot commences an apparently largely epistolatory affair with Denise Rollin, which will continue until her death in 1978.–Spurious and more at Google books.
From Surreal Documents’ first post which features a photograph by Boiffard and Valter’s manifesto:
This blog has been inspired by my visit to the exhibition “Undercover Surrealism” at the Hayward Gallery in London. The blog is intended to contain doctrines, fine arts, ethnography, variety. Expect dusty things, ethnographies of one-man-Cthulhu Cults, confused concepts, black and blackened musics, untruths.
Checking Valter’s blogroll (show me your blogroll and I will tell you who you are) you will find Jim Woodring, Monster Brains, the Wooster Collective, Esotika Erotica Psychotica, Giallo Fever, Groovy Age Of Horror, Mutant Sounds, Video Watchblog and the recent newcomer Ombres Blanches.
To conclude, some Coffin Joe:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXuVaA63Hbk]
My brother’s recommending the short story “Enoch Soames”, and the anthology above looks like a nice place to read it in. The story is well-known for its clever and humorous use of the ideas of time travel and pact with Faust. Another good place to read it would be The Book of Fantasy (1940), an Argentianan anthology edited by Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Silvina Ocampo. A site dedicated to Hunter S. Thompson has this:
Published in 1979 by St. Martin’s Press, this collection edited by Duncan Fallowell contains a number of stories, including “The Dinner” by Thomas Love Peacock, “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe and “Enoch Soames” by Max Beerbohm. Hardly the kind of works you would expect “The Heat Closing In” by William S. Burroughs to be surrounded by. HST [Hunter S. Thompson’s] part is called “A Night on the Town” , the part from FFLV [Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas] where HST describes his encounter with an acid guru, when he lived near Michael Olay. –www.gonzo.org
Taxidermia (2006) – György Pálfi
It’s difficult to write much about Taxidermia in a blog that my parents read! The film, directed by György Pálfi, is visually and thematically grotesque. It’s full of startling, transgressive images. (Even the original poster had to be obscured, though the poster used for the Cannes Film Festival premiere is uncensored.) www.matthewhunt.com/blog
György Pálfi’s grotesque tale of three generations of men, including an obese speed eater, an embalmer of gigantic cats, and a man who shoots fire out of his penis. www.imdb.com/title/tt0410730/
Taxidermia is a 2006 film about three generations from Hungary, including a taxidermist, starting during the Second World War. The film is surreal in nature with dark comedy. The director is György Pálfi. The film is a Hungary / Austria / France collaboration and the language is Hungarian. The film is based on short stories by Lajos Parti Nagy. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxidermia
Aside from his albums and collaborations, Amon Tobin has also produced the composition to the Hungarian film, Taxidermia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon_Tobin
György Pálfi est un réalisateur et scénariste hongrois né le 11 avril 1974 à Budapest. fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gy%C3%B6rgy_P%C3%A1lfi
German language trailer at YouTube:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMODCtHZmJo]
Hungarian trailer at YouTube
French trailer at YouTube:
Amon Tobin soundtrack excerpt of same
