{ feuilleton }

Weekend links 676

Sleeve Study, from Kakitsubata (1998) by Paul Binnie.

• “London was not a project for me. It was the curse that never stops giving.” Iain Sinclair talking to Matthew Stocker about his new book for Swan River Press, Agents of Oblivion.

• The Ultimate DMT Breakthrough Replication Compilation, a video guide to the DMT experience by Josie Sims. Related: Kristen French on what hallucinogens will make you see.

• At Spoon & Tamago: A return to Tokyo Genso’s depictions of an urban Japan transformed by vegetation and neglect.

• New music: The Shell That Speaks The Sea by David Toop & Lawrence English.

• At Bajo el Signo de Libra: San Sebastián de Mártir a Icono Homosexual.

• Cosmic views from the Milky Way Photographer of the Year, 2023.

• Nakamura Mitsue makes a Noh mask from a single block of wood.

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

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Delphine Seyrig Day.

• Of Ancient Memory (The Oblivion Seekers) (1994) by Jarboe | Oblivion (2001) by Lustmord | Oblivion (2004) by Redshift

If I’d have seen it earlier I would have included this animated film in my Echoes of de Chirico post. Chirico (2008) is a wordless 4-minute homage to the maestro of pittura metafisica directed by Keiichi Tanaami with Nobuhiro Aihama. In addition to being a celebrated artist and designer, Keiichi Tanaami has been making short animations since the 1960s, usually with the assistance of other artists. This one puts familiar de Chirico motifs through a metamorphic Surrealist wringer in a manner that could easily have been extended into a much longer film. De Chirico has evidently been a preoccupation for Tanaami in recent years, providing a landscape he can appropriate for his bad-trip take on psychedelic art.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Surrealism archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Echoes of de Chirico
• Sweet Friday, a film by Keiichi Tanaami
• Keiichi Tanaami record covers

Toytown psychedelia

The Teletrips of Alala (1970).

The imaginative landscapes of childhood were always close at hand in the psychedelic culture of the 1960s, more so in Britain than the USA, and especially where music was concerned. Grace Slick may have given the world White Rabbit but there’s a whole sub-genre of British psychedelic song-writing devoted to children’s games, children’s dreams, sweetshops, fairy tales and the like. Rob Chapman in his essential study of the form, Psychedelia and Other Colours, refers to this tendency as “infantasia”. With psychedelic art being so vivid and playful it’s a small step from lysergic wonderlands to children’s books styled in a quasi-psychedelic manner, which is what we have here. There was a lot of this around in the early 1970s, not all of it very memorable. Some of the best examples were published by Harlin Quist, a US/French imprint who specialised in beautiful books illustrated by exceptional talents. A few of these may be seen at The Peculiar Manicule.

Gertrude and the Mermaid (1968)
by Richard Hughes, illustrated by Nicole Claveloux.

“This is the story a little girl, her doll named Gertrude, and a mysterious mermaid-child.” The first of several books by Nicole Claveloux for Harlin Quist.

Help, Help, the Globolinks! (1970)
by Gian Carlo Menotti, translated and adapted by Leigh Dean, illustrated by Milton Glaser.

“Recounts the events following the landing of the outer-space Globolinks on Earth.” A German comic opera from 1968 in which a group of children encounter an alien invasion.

The Teletrips of Alala (1970)
by Guy Monreal, illustrated by Nicole Claveloux.

“With her unique power to enter the television set and change the course of the programs, Alala creates havoc in the world.” Nicole Claveloux puts her own twist on the Yellow Submarine art style. A few years after this she was creating comic strips for Métal Hurlant. Her more recent work includes erotic retellings of fairy tales. (more pages)

Andromedar SR1 (1971)
by Martin Ripkens & Hans Stempel, illustrated by Heinz Edelmann.

“Two astronauts under the spell of an evil octopus are ordered to steal the cobalt-blue flowers from the Martian Mice.” Ripkens and Stempel were better known for their work as cinema critics and film-makers. (more pages)

Cartulino: El asombroso doctor Zas (1971)
by Miguel Agustí, illustrated by Alberto Solsona.

A comic strip from a Spanish title, Strong. Alberto Solsona also drew Agar-Agar, the grooviest strip in the short-lived Dracula comic. Cartulino had a number of different adventures but online examples are scarce.

Los Doce Trabajos de Hércules (1973)
by Miguel Calatayud.

“Serie de episodios sobre la penitencia llevada a cabo por Hércules el mayor de los héroes griegos.” A comic adaptation rather than a story book but the art style is a good example of the general trend.

Update: Added Alberto Solsona.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Glaser goes POP
• Return to Pepperland
• The groovy look
• The psychedelic art of Nicole Claveloux
• Psychedelia and Other Colours by Rob Chapman
• David Chestnutt’s psychedelic fairy tales

Weekend links 675

Lucifer (1890) by Franz Stuck.

• “I wanted to reclaim the word ‘psychonauts’ and take it back into the 19th century, where it describes not only renegades and rebels, but also establishment scientists, doctors, and pillars of the literary establishment. The word that was used at the time was “self-experimenter.” Mike Jay (again) talking to Steve Paulson about psychoactive research and the scientists who taste their own medicine.

• “How did countercultures commune before the internet?” asks J. Hoberman, reviewing Heads Together: Weed and the Underground Press Syndicate, 1965–1973 by David Jacob Kramer.

• At Public Domain Review: Medieval advice concerning the mythical Bonnacon: “the protection which its forehead denies this monster is furnished by its bowels”.

• DJ Food unearths posters and badges for The Kaleidoscope, a short-lived Los Angeles music venue of the late 60s.

• At Spoon & Tamago: Gaku Yamazaki has documented thousands of unusual road signs across Japan.

• New music: Psalm013: Unland by Pram of Dogs, and Intimaa by Bana Haffar.

• At Unquiet Things: A sneak peek from the forthcoming The Art of Fantasy.

• The Strange World of…Shirley Collins.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Bruce Posner Day.

• Kenneth Anger: a life in pictures.

• RIP Tina Turner.

• Kaleidoscope (1967) by Kaleidoscope (UK) | Kaleidoscope (1984) by Rain Parade | Collideascope (1987) by The Dukes Of Stratosphear

Kenneth Anger, 1927–2023

Kenneth Anger, Topanga Canyon (composite with Gustave Doré engraving) (1954) by Edmund Teske.

The other day…I had a date with Tom Luddy at a New York hotel in the East Fifties to meet Kenneth Anger, the genius who made Scorpio Rising and whose New York flat is a shrine to Valentino.

Michael Powell, from A Life in Movies, 1986

There’s not much I can add to all the plaudits, especially when Kenneth Anger has been a continual fixture here since 2007, with the last post about him going up only two weeks ago. I always find it impossible to make one of those lists where people name their ten favourite films but Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle is one of the very few titles I could add to such a list, and it probably sits in the top five. What the other four might be depends on changes of mood or weather.

The most Anger recent post came about after I’d been re-reading the unofficial Bill Landis biography, a book I’d dipped into over the years but not gone all the way through again since it was published in 1995. It’s an uneven study of Anger’s life and erratic career, detailed yet slapdash, but Landis did at least interview many of Anger’s colleagues and acquaintances while they were still around. Even though Anger himself hated the results of the often gossipy investigation the book will remain an invaluable resource for future writers.

Some links:
• Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon (1991). In which Nigel Finch persuaded a reluctant Anger to drive around Los Angeles in a hearse visiting sites of death or disaster mentioned in Anger’s first book. I suspect Finch was more interested in discussing Anger’s films, which are also featured, but needed the scandalous stuff to get the thing made at all. The BBC hadn’t done anything about Anger before this, and haven’t done anything since.

• Kenneth Anger–Magier des Untergrundfilms (1970), a 53-minute documentary made for WDR by Reinhold E. Thiel. A frustrating film, being a mix of awkward interviews (Anger didn’t like Herr Thiel very much) with priceless footage showing the filming of parts of Lucifer Rising. A shame, then, that all the copies which have been circulating for the past decade are low-grade and blighted throughout by one of those proprietary signatures that idiots stick onto footage they don’t own. WDR must still have the film so maybe we’ll get to see a better copy one day.

• Sex, Satanism, Manson, Murder, and LSD: Kenneth Anger tells his tale. Paul Gallagher recounts his own meetings with Anger and also posts several Anger-related pages from Kinokaze zine, 1993.

• Hollywood Bohemia: An interview with Kenneth Anger by AL Bardach for Wet magazine, 1980.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Anger Magick Lantern Cycle, 1966
• Don’t Smoke That Cigarette by Kenneth Anger
• Kenneth Anger’s Maldoror
• Donald Cammell and Kenneth Anger, 1972
• My Surfing Lucifer by Kenneth Anger
• Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome: The Eldorado Edition
• Brush of Baphomet by Kenneth Anger
• Anger Sees Red
• Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon
• Lucifer Rising posters
• Missoni by Kenneth Anger
• Anger in London
• Arabesque for Kenneth Anger by Marie Menken
• Edmund Teske
• Kenneth Anger on DVD again
• Mouse Heaven by Kenneth Anger
• The Man We Want to Hang by Kenneth Anger
• Relighting the Magick Lantern
• Kenneth Anger on DVD…finally