{electronica} – Page 4 – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 762

Aquarius from the 1971 Astrologicalendar by Peter Max. Via.

• AOS of London: Psychogeographia Zosiana is a map guide to the London of Austin Osman Spare with accompanying illustrations by Ben Thompson. The book also contains an interview transcript in which Alan Moore talks about the importance of Spare’s work, and a contextual history by Gavin W. Semple.

• Emigre was “…a (mostly) quarterly magazine published from 1984 until 2005 in Berkeley, California, dedicated to visual communication, graphic design, typography, and design criticism.” The magazine ran for 69 issues which can be downloaded here.

• “The ultimate reason for initiating something ambitious is not to fulfill certain notions but to find out what surprises might emerge.” Stewart Brand, quoted in a long read by Alec Nevala-Lee about the Clock of the Long Now.

• At the Criterion Current: David Hudson on David Lynch’s life and work, an overview of the reaction to last week’s news. I was surprised to find my comments about Alan Splet included in the collection.

• At Wormwoodiana: Mark Valentine on the connections between Charles Williams’ The Place of the Lion and an obscure piece of fiction (or is it?) by Ruaraidh Erskine.

• At Public Domain Review: Illustrations by Jay van Everen from The Laughing Prince: A Book of Jugoslav Fairy Tales and Folk Tales (1921).

• At Colossal: Beguiling botanicals fluoresce in Tom Leighton’s otherworldly photographs.

• New music: Glory Fades by Yair Elazar Glotman & Mats Erlandsson.

• Old music: Cités Analogues by Lightwave.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Georges Perec Day.

• The Clock Strikes Twelve (1959) by Bo Diddley | Clock Factory (1993) by The Sabres Of Paradise | Clock (1995) by Node

Weekend links 761

• At Bandcamp: Marc Masters on The Curious Case of the Channeled New Age Tape; and Erick Bradshaw’s guide to Nurse With Wound.

• At Public Domain Review: Designing the Sublime – Boullée and Ledoux’s Architectural Revolution by Hugh Aldersey-Williams.

• The fifth installment of Smoky Man’s exploration of The Bumper Book of Magic has been posted (in Italian) at (quasi).

It does not follow that the scientific spirit of empirical inquiry runs against dreaming, and [André] Breton was wrong to think [Roger] Caillois’s investigative methods opposed wonder. Material mysticism led Caillois back to magical thinking, which he expanded further than the Surrealist interest in chance and coincidence as he probed for insights into the order of things. Caillois was equally, perhaps even more, fascinated with magic than the Surrealists, but he wanted to probe what might exist as phenomenally marvelous, beyond the subjective self—he was a scholar of the sacred, and from the episode of the jumping beans onwards, he looked for its character and its workings in actual phenomena. In this sense he was more of a believer—though not in a personal god or a religion. Where Breton exalted the perceiver, Caillois wanted to go beyond these anthropocentric limits.

Marina Warner on the imaginary logic of Roger Caillois

• Mixes of the week: DreamScenes – January 2025 at Ambientblog, and Unrush 093 at A Strangely Isolated Place.

• At Criterion.com: Reincarnations of a Rebel Muse – David Hudson on Delphine Seyrig.

• Old music renewed: Angherr Shisspa (Revisited) by Koenjihyakkei.

• At Dennis Cooper’s it’s Laura Dern’s Day.

• Jussi Lehtisalo’s favourite music.

• Lynch music: The Beast (1956) by Milt Buckner | Honky Tonk (Part 1) (1958) by Bill Doggett | Something Wicked This Way Comes (1996) by Barry Adamson

Weekend links 760

Ermitaño Meditando (1955) by Remedios Varo.

• Public Domain Review announces the Public Domain Image Archive. I’ve added it to the list. Meanwhile, the PDR regular postings include Francis Picabia’s 391 magazine (1917–1924).

• Among the new titles at Standard Ebooks, the home of free, high-quality, public-domain texts: The Well at the World’s End by William Morris.

• At Smithsonian Magazine: “See 25 incredible images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest”.

The ideas are more complex than the presentation suggests, but not vastly. Neither is it exactly breaking new ground. Art is everywhere, they say, from fingernails to fine dining; art is not a message to be decoded, but takes on new meanings in the mind of each viewer; art allows us to experience emotions in a “safe” context, like a form of affective practice; art helps us to imagine new worlds, thereby expanding the boundaries of what’s possible in the real world. The point isn’t to be original, though, but to distil a lifetime’s worth of practical wisdom and reflection. The result is a kind of joyous manifesto: just the thing to inspire a teenager (or adult) into a new creative phase. Eno and Adriaanse conclude with a “Wish”: that the book helps us understand that “what we need is already inside us”, and that “art – playing and feeling – is a way of discovering it”.

Brian Eno and Bette Adriaanse talking to David Shariatmadari about their new book, What Art Does: An Unfinished Theory

• “Crunchie: The Taste Bomb!” DJ Food unearths four psychedelic posters promoting Fry’s Crunchie bars.

• New music: Music For Alien Temples by Various Artists, and Awakening The Ancestors by Nomad Tree.

• At Wormwoodiana: Mark Valentine lays out a history of the Tarot in England.

• Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Research Arkestra live on German TV, 1970.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Chris Marker Day (restored/expanded).

• At the BFI: Anton Bitel on 10 great Mexican horror films.

• Matt Berry’s favourite albums.

• Tarot (Ace of Wands Theme) (1970) by Andrew Bown | Tarotplane (1971) by Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band | Tarot One (2012) by Tarot Twilight

Weekend links 758

Monstrum in animo (1955) by Yves Laloy.

• This week’s obligatory Bumper Book of Magic links: Alan Moore World has more of my ongoing comments about the creation of the book, while Séamas O’Reilly talked to Alan about the book itself and its connections with The Great When. The latter piece lowered my already low opinion of the late Genesis P-Orridge.

• At Timeless: A reprint of Bright Lights and Cats With no Mouths by John Balance. Still in print is The Cupboard Under the Stairs, a selection from JB’s notebooks.

• If you enjoy sleight-of hand magic—and I most certainly do—then Ricky Jay & His 52 Assistants (1996) is 58 miraculous minutes by a master of the art.

• Mixes of the week: Winter Solstice 6 at Ambientblog; a mix for The Wire by Rafael Toral; and Reflection on 2024 at a Strangely Isolated Place.

• “Whatever the reason, there is something sorrowful about the disposal of art, whatever the perceived quality,” says Steven Heller.

• New music: The Path Of The Elder Ones by Nerthus.

• Bright Lights (1959?) by Wade Curtiss & The Rhythm Rockers | Bright Lights, Big City (1961) by Jimmy Reed | I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight (1974) by Richard & Linda Thompson

Weekend links 755

A painting by Ed Emshwiller for the cover of Fantastic Stories of Imagination, July 1962, illustrating The Singing Statues by JG Ballard .

• This week in the Bumper Book of Magic: my comments about the creation of the book’s cover and magical alphabet have been posted at Alan Moore World. At (Quasi), Smoky Man (in Italian) looks at other parts of the book, and includes my answers to his questions about the creation of The Soul, a character originally planned for a comic strip that Alan Moore and I were working on. I’ve been trying recently to find the first sketches I made of The Soul back in 2000 or 2001, without success. If I do find any of them I’ll post them here.

• New music: Juk-Shabb by Cryo Chamber Collaboration is this year’s installment in the Lovecraft-themed album series (previously) from Cryo Chamber. Also this week: Xerrox Vol. 5 by Alva Noto; Nocturne (Soundtrack for an Invisible Film) by Avi C. Engel; and Cat Location Conundrum by Moon Wiring Club.

• Code: Damp: An Esoteric Guide to British Sitcoms by Sophie Sleigh-Johnson, being “an alternative occult and esoteric history of England told through one of its most popular cultural forms: the comedy sitcom”.

…the joy of art isn’t only the pleasure of an end result but also the experience of going through the process of having made it. When you go out for a walk it isn’t just (or even primarily) for the pleasure of reaching a destination, but for the process of doing the walking. For me, using AI all too often feels like I’m engaging in a socially useless process, in which I learn almost nothing and then pass on my non-learning to others. It’s like getting the postcard instead of the holiday.

Brian Eno at Boston Review

• “The typographic choices that Godard made were thematic and not only chosen for their stylistic properties.” Arijana Zeric looks inside the design world of Jean-Luc Godard.

• Coming soon from Strange Attractor: The Stammering Librarian: Essays by Timothy D’Arch Smith, edited by Edwin Pouncey & Sandy Robertson.

• At Public Domain Review: Fantastic Planet: The Microscopy Album of Marinus Pieter Filbri (1887–88).

• At the BFI: Michael Brooke offers suggestions for where to begin with Guy Maddin.

• At The Quietus: The Strange World of…Dennis Bovell.

• Mix of the week: A mix for The Wire by KMRU.

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

• Fantastic Cat (1996) by Takako Minekawa | Fantastic Analysis (2001) by Mouse On Mars | Fantastic Mass (2016) by Time Attendant