Weekend links 703

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Njommelsaska i Lappland (1856) by Carl Svantje Hallbeck.

101 hidden gems: the greatest films you’ve never seen. Not another clickbait listicle of Hollywood fare that you really have seen, this is 101 films from Sight & Sound‘s annual poll of critics and directors, each of which only received a single vote. Cinema from the silent era to the present day, “from every continent but Antarctica”, all presented on a single page, and with accompanying notes from the voters. I’ve only seen four of these so it’s a list to mine for the future.

• 2024 will see the 100th anniversary of the publication of the first Surrealist manifestos, so the following new books are making their presences known before the celebratory rush. At Colossal: extracts from New Surrealism: The Uncanny in Contemporary Painting by Robert Zeller; at AnotherMag: photos by Coco Capítan of Salvador Dalí’s home at Port Lligat.

• “Cocteau was like one of those magicians who, having announced that they are going to reveal the secret of one trick, immediately perform another.” Pierre Caizergues introducing extracts from The Secrets of Beauty, a small book of aphorisms by Jean Cocteau, newly translated into English by Juliet Powys.

• More Michael Powell: “Scorsese says The Red Shoes is in his DNA”: Thelma Schoonmaker on her life and work with Michael Powell and his friend Marty.

Dennis Cooper’s favourite fiction, poetry, non-fiction, film, art, and internet of 2023. Thanks again for the link here!

• At The Daily Heller: Book covers by Iris Alba (1935–1993), art director, illustrator and graphic designer.

• At Smithsonian Magazine: See the newest underwater sculptures residing on the floor of the Caribbean.

• At Wormwoodiana: Douglas A. Anderson goes looking for the fantasy fiction of Raymond Chandler.

• At Public Domain Review: Paige Hirschey on Anna Atkins’ cyanotypes.

Entries for the Northern Lights Photographer of the Year 2023.

• At Bibliothèque Gay: Der Mann in der Photographie, 1954.

Aurora (1971) by Tonto’s Expanding Head Band | Aurora (2005) by Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto | Aurora Liminalis (2013) by William Basinski + Richard Chartier

Weekend links 701

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Frosty Morning in Nagaoka, Izu (1939) by Hasui Kawase.

• “A few years ago, retired professor of religious studies Chris Bache wrote a book called LSD and the Mind of the Universe. His book is the story of 73 high-dose LSD experiences he had over a period of 20 years, from 1979 to 1999, and how they changed his understanding of the very nature of reality. Bache believes psychedelics represent a ‘true revolution in Western thought,’ and his life has been lived around that premise. But after his long psychedelic journey, Chris ends up in a really interesting place. He wonders, ‘Can you have too much transcendence?'” Steve Paulson talks to Chris Bache about mega-dosing LSD.

• “Operating in the margins and intersections of folklore, experimental electronics, dreams and nightmares…” Or Hauntology, German-style. Louis Pattison at Bandcamp looks at some of the artists featured on Gespensterland, a compilation album released by Bureau B. The latest news reports about Bandcamp haven’t been encouraging. Download those digital purchases.

• “Cassel favored botanically inspired lines, distilled geometries, and a crepuscular-or-witching hour palette to capture the strange wind and cold light of a particular metaphysical space.” Johanna Fateman reviews Anna Cassel: The Saga of the Rose, a book about the occult artist edited by Kurt Almqvist and Daniel Birnbaum.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: 10 filmmakers, 20 short films, 2 each: Joyce Wieland, Vivienne Dick, Eileen Maxson, Sue de Beer, Amy Greenfield, Chiaki Watanabe, Coleen Fitzgibbon, Germaine Dulac, Lori Felker, Barbara Hammer.

• Rambalac took his roaming camera to the slopes of Mount Fuji. More drone shots, please.

• New music: A Field Guide To Phantasmic Birds by Kate Carr, and Inland Delta by Biosphere.

Winners and finalists for the 2023 Ocean Photographer of the Year.

• At Wyrd Daze: the latest Disco Rd zine and related podcast.

Transcendental Express (1975) by Can | Transcendence (1977) by Alice Coltrane | Transcendental Moonshine (1991) by Steroid Maximus

Weekend links 700

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Lux in Tenebris (1895) by Evelyn De Morgan.

• “NASA celebrates the worm logo designer, Richard Danne“. Until I read this story (and this one) I wasn’t aware that the NASA logos were known as The Meatball and The Worm.

The Red Shoes: behind the scenes of the classic Powell and Pressburger film – in pictures. Related: Kings of the movies: Martin Scorsese on Powell & Pressburger.

• The 700th weekend post happens to arrive on Alan Moore’s 70th birthday. Many happy returns to the Northampton Magus.

Fundamentally, we face a choice. Either:

• it’s a coincidence that, of all the possible values that the finely tuned constants of physics may have had, they just happen to have the right values for life;

or:

• the constants have those values because they are right for life.

The former option is wildly improbable; on a conservative estimate, the odds of getting finely tuned constants by chance is less than 1 in 10-136. The latter option amounts to a belief that something at the fundamental level of reality is directed towards the emergence of life. I call this kind of fundamental goal-directedness ‘cosmic purpose’.

As a society, we’re somewhat in denial about fine-tuning, because it doesn’t fit with the picture of science we’ve got used to. It’s a bit like in the 16th century when we started getting evidence that our Earth wasn’t in the centre of the universe, and people struggled to accept it because it didn’t fit with the picture of the universe they’d got used to. Nowadays, we scoff at our ancestors’ inability to follow the evidence where it leads. But every generation absorbs a worldview it can’t see beyond. I believe we’re in a similar situation now with respect to the mounting evidence for cosmic purpose. We’re ignoring what is lying in plain view because it doesn’t fit with the version of reality we’ve got used to. Future generations will mock us for our intransigence.

Philip Goff, professor in philosophy at Durham University, making an argument for cosmic purpose

• At Spoon & Tamago: Exploring Japanese Hell through art from the 12th to 19th century.

• New music: Turning The Prism by Ben Frost, and Sanctuary Of Desire by Steve Roach.

• Mix of the week is DreamScenes – November 2023 at Ambientblog.

• DJ Food looks at Tomi Ungerer’s Electric Circus posters.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Alain Resnais Day.

Strange Flowers visits the Villa Stuck.

Diet Of Worms (1979) by This Heat | Opera Of Worms (1981) by Van Kaye & Ignit| Wormhole (2002) by Cliff Martinez

Weekend links 699

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November Evening (1955) by Brian Gartside.

• The next Jon Savage compilation for Caroline True Records will be Jon Savage’s Ambient 90s, a dive into the side of rave culture that I always preferred, even while disputing the use of the “A” word. Anything with beats isn’t ambient by my definition, but I’ve been complaining about the nomenclature since 1991 to no avail. It’s on pre-order anyway.

• “They produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection.” Thus Frankenstein’s monster during his reading of three books that happen to be important texts for the Romantic imagination. Hunter Dukes looks at the syllabus of Frankenstein’s monster.

• “Figure on Led Zeppelin IV cover identified as Victorian Wiltshire thatcher”. Last year I discovered the source for the lyrics and credits lettering designs used on the same album’s inner sleeve. Not as newsworthy, obviously, but I thought it was a good piece of cultural detective work.

• At Aquarium Drunkard: An interview with Morton Subotnick, now 90 years old. “Pioneer” is an over-used label, especially in electronic music, but Subotnick really does warrant the description.

• At Wormwoodiana: Mark Valentine on Unburied Bane, an EP by The Heartwood Institute based on a story by “the enigmatic N. Dennett”.

• At Unquiet Things: Art and captions that didn’t make the print version of The Art of Fantasy by S. Elizabeth.

• “Hidden demon revealed in the shadows of a Joshua Reynolds painting.”

• New music: Polygon by Galya Bisengalieva, and Saor by Claire M. Singer.

• Steven Heller’s font of the month is Letraflex.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Arthur Lipsett’s Day.

Martin Carthy’s favourite music.

Little Demon (1956) by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins | Ballad Of Maxwell Demon (1998) by Shudder To Think | On Demon Wings (2000) by Bohren And Der Club Of Gore

Weekend links 698

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Contained Maze (1966) by Michael Ayrton.

• At Public Domain Review: Skeletons (1692) by Ikkyu, a Japanese monk, whose book is “a mixture of poetry and prose that comes down to us in printed editions supposedly replicating a manuscript, now lost, by the monk’s own hand. The text describes a series of visions of animated skeletons that Ikkyu had when he visited an abandoned temple. The lively illustrations testify to their maker’s sardonic sense of humour: he images skeletons dancing, drumming, drinking sake, having sex.”

• At The Daily Heller: Victor Moscoso’s Psychedelic Valedictory Exhibit. The exhibition will be at the Instituto Cervantes in New York City which has an accompanying 224-page catalogue of Moscoso’s posters and other designs.

• More Moscoso: Color (1971) and Moscoso Comix (1989), free to download at the Internet Archive. Moscoso’s underground comics experimented with the form in a manner that still looks radical today.

Drone and ambient metal is often invoked in elemental terms. There is something antediluvian and beyond about it. Pierce the earth’s crust, and there is liquid fire, ever so slowly shifting the tectonic plates we inhabit. Such music is envisaged as massive and totally beyond our control. It infuses the foundations of civilization. As Attila Csihar intones on Sunn O))) track ‘Aghartha’, named for a legendary subterranean kingdom: “Into the memories of the consciousness of ancient rocks/ Nature’s answer to eternal question”.

Stripped of the trappings of modern pop and rock, ambient metal invites a search for answers to the bigger questions. Ancient musical modes are resurfaced to get us closer to a putative godhead.

Dan Franklin on Earth 2, the deceptively-titled debut album by Earth. The album’s 30th anniversary has prompted a collection of remixes, Earth 2.23, by various artists

• At Spoon & Tamago: Download over 30 butterfly designs by Meiji-era artist Yuho Tanaka.

• New music: HYbr:ID II by Alva Noto, and The View From Vega by Benge.

The winners of the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2023.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Guy Maddin Day (restored/expanded).

• A happy 20th birthday to Swan River Press.

Industrial Landscape (1980) by Marc Barreca | Desolate Landscape (2012) by John Zorn | Primordial Landscape (2013) by Patrick Cowley