Alison Flood – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 462

The next release on the Ghost Box label, Chanctonbury Rings is “a blend of folk, electronic music, poetry, prose and environmental sound” by Justin Hopper & Sharron Kraus with The Belbury Poly. The album will be available in June. Design, as always, is by Julian House.

• Clumsy and insensitive translations can ruin the enjoyment of a foreign-language film. Don’t blame us, say the subtitlers pressing film-makers for more appreciation of their art. Anne Billson on the difficulties of translating for a medium of moving images.

• At Expanding Mind: Hypermedia researcher and author Konrad Becker talks with Erik Davis about algorithms from hell, the madness of rationality, media seances, and the martial art of freedom.

• The HP Lovecraft Cat Book: a limited collection of Lovecraft’s writings about cats edited by ST Joshi and illustrated by Jason C. Eckhardt.

Amacher was also inspired by a short story she found in the 1986 cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades, edited by Bruce Sterling—a tale called Petra by Greg Bear, about a grand cathedral, possibly Notre Dame in Paris, in a ravaged, postapocalyptic landscape. Stone gargoyles and other statues mate with humans, creating new hybrids who wander the labyrinthine chambers of the battered house of worship.

Geeta Dayal on composer Maryanne Amacher

• The novel that wouldn’t leave Anthony Burgess alone: Alison Flood on the discovery of a non-fiction continuation of the themes in A Clockwork Orange.

• Kristina Foster on photographs of Central Asia’s Striking Soviet Architecture.

• Adrian Shaughnessy‘s ten favourite design and visual culture books.

• William Joel on the process behind Helvetica’s 21st century facelift.

• The Stupid Classics Book Club by Elisa Gabbert.

• The Haunted Generation by Bob Fischer.

• Haunted Cocktails (1983) by Intro | Haunted Gate (1997) by David Toop | The Universe Is A Haunted House (2002) by Coil

Weekend links 446

The Ghost Box label releases a new album by the excellent Pye Corner Audio in February (previews are here). The spectral design, as ever, is by Julian House.

• “In October 1966, Phyllis Willner arrived on motorcycle in San Francisco as a teenage Jewish runaway from Jamaica, Queens. She quickly fell in with the Hell’s Angels, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and, most crucially, the Diggers, who were just getting their street radical thing together in the Haight-Ashbury. The next two years would be eventful: many extraordinary highs, some really terrible lows.” Jay Babcock talks to Phyllis Willner about her involvement with “the executive branch of the hippie movement”, the Diggers.

• At Expanding Mind: Erik Davis talks with religious scholar Diana Pasulka about UFOs, scientific believers, book encounters, elite cabals, studying weirdness, and her new book American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology.

• Kenneth Anger is now 91 but he still appears hale, and looks even more magus-like than ever. This short film by Floria Sigismondi finds him reminiscing in the antiquated confines of the Chateau Marmont hotel on Sunset Boulevard.

David Wojnarowicz did not write dark fantasy. He wrote real life. In The Waterfront Journals he brilliantly captures electric tales from the mouths of strangers, those he described as “junkies, prostitutes, male hustlers, truck drivers, hobos, young outlaws, runaway kids, criminal types”, whose lives echo his own ostracized existence. He was thirteen when he was first paid for sex and sixteen when he started “turning tricks” regularly. His mother kicked him out of the house. By the time Wojnarowicz came out to friends in New York, he was in his early twenties. He was on the cusp of finding his voice as a writer and his confidence as an artist. It was the mid-1970s. AIDS was about to tear through the gay community.

Lara Pawson reviews three books by artist and writer David Wojnarowicz

• John Banville reviews Kafka’s Last Trial by Benjamin Balint: “A scrupulous study of the squabble between Germany and Israel over Kafka’s papers, and the two women caught in the middle.”

• A sitting with the diva of the diode: electronic musician Suzanne Ciani in conversation with Christine Kakaire.

• Mixes of the week: Secret Thirteen Mix 076 by KK Null, and XLR8R Podcast 574 by SHXCXCHCXSH.

• Cassie Packard on the colorful and clairvoyant history of aura photography.

• Edward Gorey’s Children’s Books Illustrations, Revisited.

• Alison Flood on the fascination of miniature books.

• Magic Hollow (1967) by The Beau Brummels | Hollow Stone (1972) by Khan | Through Hollow Lands (For Harold Budd) (1977) by Brian Eno

Weekend links 61

Marbles and Butterflies (2011) by Jennifer Knaus.

• “Cutter’s Way is a cinematic masterpiece” says John Patterson. Yes, it is, and it’s often been difficult to see (although it’s now on DVD) being one of those cult films that rarely surfaced on TV or video. Another cult film surfacing at last is Jerzy Skolimowski’s Deep End (yes, again…) which will be out on DVD & Blu-ray next month. I missed this Telegraph piece about the film. You want more? Lint: The Movie is showing at the Kino Club, Brighton, later this month.

• This week’s Eno haul: Developing Your Creative Practice: Tips from Brian Eno; Eric Tamm’s 1995 study Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound is now available for free at the author’s website; Imagine New Times is an outtake from Eno’s forthcoming Drums Between the Bells which can be downloaded here.

• Mixtapes of the week: Demdike Stare with a suitably sinister and eclectic mix are out-curated by Current 93’s David Tibet who mashes together a unique blend of folk, prog, riffs, choral works and glam rock.

I began to realize the hypocrisy about sexual freedom in the feminist establishment was as bad as it is in the religious right. They do whatever they want. They look at whatever they want, they masturbate to whatever they want, they fuck whoever and however they like. I couldn’t even say everything I know in the book because it would just be too cruel and personally invasive. But I’ve had it with their lying. I spent so long trying to have these earnest conversations and now I’m like, “Fuck you — you’re as bad as the Vatican!”

Susie Bright interviewed by Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon sounding as happy and positive as she always does.

• The Gnostic #4 is out this month featuring Alan Moore’s essay on magic and related matters, Fossil Angels, and a piece examining the Gnostic influences on Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.

• “Nobody should be sent to prison for taking drugs,” says Richard Branson. Many politicians agree with him but they’re all too cowardly to do anything about it.

Untitled work by Kilian Eng.

• The Adventures of Jerry Cornelius, The English Assassin (1969–70). A comic strip written by Michael Moorcock & M John Harrison with art by Mal Dean & Richard Glyn Jones.

• The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government by David K Johnson is available as a free ebook here.

• “If I was to try to write a mainstream book I would be constantly bumping my elbows up against the restrictions.” Tim Powers is interviewed by Alison Flood.

• HOMO Online, Adventures in Homosexuality: Fiction, Fact, Art and Porn.

• Your Rainbow Panorama, a new work by Olafur Eliasson.

• Self Suck, a poem by Angelo Nikolopoulos.

• Map Of Dusk (1987) by Jon Hassell | Lam Lam (1998) by Baaba Maal (with Jon Hassell & Brian Eno) | All Is Full Of Love (1999) by Björk (Guy Sigsworth mix featuring Jon Hassell).