Weekend links 417

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Cover of How To Destroy Angels (Remixes And Re-Recordings) (1992) by Coil. Artwork: Fine Balance (1986) by Derek Jarman.

• It’s that man again: “According to the late great short story writer Robert Aickman, the problem with our excessively modern world is not that it is strange, but that it is not strange enough.” Scott Bradfield on a writer who can no longer be described as neglected or overlooked.

• Coil may have expired over a decade ago after the death of John Balance but the posthumous releases persist. Latest of these is How To Destroy Angels, an album-length presentation of music (or audio) by Coil and Zos Kia (John Gosling) from 1983/84.

• “Two decades ago, a renowned professor promised to produce a flawless version of one of the 20th century’s most celebrated novels: Ulysses. Then he disappeared.” The Strange Case of the Missing Joyce Scholar.

• At Dangerous Minds: The Fool: The Dutch artists who worked for The Beatles (and made their own freak folk masterpiece). Previously here: The art of Marijke Koger.

• RIP Nick Knox. The Cramps were always best when playing live, as here in 1986 when they performed songs from A Date With Elvis on Channel 4’s The Tube.

• “The McKenzie Tapes is a collection of live audio recordings from some of New York City-area most prominent music venues of the 1980s and 1990s.”

• Beyond the veil: two extracts from Death by Anna Croissant-Rust, one of two new books from Rixdorf Editions.

• Impulse Responses: composer Deru on scoring with the Cristal Baschet.

Fleshback: Queer Raving in Manchester’s Twilight Zone Chapter 1–3.

• “Puzzler says he has cracked code to stolen Belgian masterpiece.”

• Mix of the week: FACT mix 657 by Beatrice Dillon.

Jenzeits

Death Have Mercy (1959) by Vera Hall | Oh Death (1964) by Dock Boggs | Oh Death (1967) by Kaleidoscope

Weekend links 414

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Czech poster for Robert Bresson’s Une Femme Douce (1969) by Olga Polácková-Vyletalová. There’s more about Polácková-Vyletalová’s striking poster designs (and this one in particular) at Mubi. See also the Polácková-Vyletalová collection at Terry Posters.

• “I heard that in Japan the tendency is to hammer down the nails that stick out. I think that Haruomi Hosono is a nail that sticks out. And has maintained that.” Van Dyke Parks on Haruomi Hosono, best known in the West for being one third of Yellow Magic Orchestra but a prolific artist in his own right. Hosono’s early solo albums are being reissued by Light In The Attic later this year.

Hua Hsu on The Spectacular Personal Mythology of Rammellzee. “Rammellzee will always feel like part of the underground,” says Geeta Dayal in a review of the Rammellzee exhibition currently showing in New York.

• Mixes of the week: Hassell’s Children, a Fourth World mix by Ban Ban Ton Ton, The Island of Bright Tombs by SeraphicManta, and a Radio Belbury mix by The Advisory Circle.

• More Robert Aickman: The Fully-Conducted Tour, a complete short story. Related: Matthew Cheney reviews the new Aickman collection, Compulsory Games.

• Another Kickstarter bid, this time for a reprint of Art Nouveau designs and illustrations by Carl Otto Czeschka.

Oliver Burkeman reviews How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics by Michael Pollan.

Art/design/architecture magazines online at the International Advertising & Design Database.

• Tonedeaf in our nose: Gerri Kimber on the musicality of James Joyce’s writing.

• More William Hope Hodgson: Greydogtales examines Hodgson’s poetry.

• The Art of Elsewhere: Jed Perl on the world of Edward Gorey.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Records.

Beat Bop (1983) by Rammellzee vs. K-Rob | Equation (1989) by Material ft. Rammellzee | No Guts No Galaxy (1999) by Ramm Ell Zee & phonosycographDISK

Weekend links 384

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Sultans of Swing by Samantha Muljat.

• Pain & Pleasure, Indivisible: Mat Colegate talks to Stephen Thrower (Coil, Cyclobe) about the meeting between Coil and Clive Barker that would have led to Coil scoring Barker’s Hellraiser if the studio hadn’t rejected the music.

• “From Arsedestroyer to Zoogz Rift: 50 underground albums you’ve never heard of” The usual presumption—I’ve been listening to The Groundhogs since the mid-1980s—but it’s a good list.

• More magazines at the Internet Archive: an incomplete run of British science-fiction monthly Interzone; and a complete (?) run of the film magazine for horror (and gore) obsessives, Fangoria.

• “…it’s background music, is what it is. But there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m very proud of it.” John Carpenter discussing his soundtrack music and his new album, Anthology.

• Mixes of the week: Aral Mix 05 by Ellen Arkbro, Secret Thirteen Mix 234 by FOQL, and Samhain Séance Six: Triffid Witch by The Ephemeral Man.

• Dallas Killers Club: Nicholson Baker reads a stack of books about the Kennedy assassinations then draws his own conclusions.

Michael Flanagan on searching for LGB histories of Neopaganism, the paranormal and the occult in San Francisco.

• At Lounge Books: author Amelia Mangan on horror, old and new, and her favourite things.

• At Monoskop: the (almost) complete works of James Joyce in one convenient epub.

Jillian Steinhauer on Duchamp’s last riddle.

Hell Raiser (1973) by Sweet | Hell’s Bells (1989) by Rhythm Devils | Hell’s Winter (2011) by Earth

A Portrait of the Author

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Portrait of James Joyce (1929) by Constantin Brancusi.

A post for Bloomsday. Joyce’s writing was always concerned more with words and phonics than with the appearance of things—understandable given his failing eyesight—but throughout his life he was a persistently attractive subject for portraits and caricatures. This was partly a consequence of being surrounded by artists but it’s also the case that the figure he cut as a man, especially in his younger years, is striking enough to be recognisable in a hasty sketch as much as a study in oils. Prior to John Lennon, Joyce’s round spectacles are the most famous in the arts of the 20th century; when added to a high forehead, a trim moustache and beard, a broad-brimmed hat and a lanky figure you have a subject that even a non-caricaturist such as myself was able to deal with when drawing the Reverbstorm series.

I’ve limited the examples here to portraits produced when Joyce was still alive. There are further examples to be found (the Augustus John is one of a series), while those produced after Joyce’s death proliferate without end.

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Portrait of James Joyce (1920) by Wyndham Lewis.

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Joyce at Midnight (c. 1930) by Desmond Harmsworth.

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James Joyce (1930) by Augustus John.

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James Joyce (1932) by César Albin.

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James Joyce (1935) by Jacques-Emile Blanche.

Previously on { feuilleton }
The Labyrinth
The Duc de Joyeux
Dubliners
Covering Joyce
James Joyce in Reverbstorm
Joyce in Time
Happy Bloomsday
Passages from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake
Books for Bloomsday

Weekend links 341

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Fountain (1917) by R. Mutt (Marcel Duchamp), and God (1917) by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.

• “What is there left to know about David Bowie? What is there left to unearth?” asks Ian Penman whose lengthy review of recent Bowie books is better by far than a shelf full of cash-in doorstops.

Strázci z hlubin casu is a collection of stories by HP Lovecraft and August Derleth from Czech publisher Volvox Globator. The book reprints artwork of mine on the cover and inside.

• Mixes of the week: Through December by David Colohan, At Alien Altars: A Conjurer’s Hexmas by Seraphic Manta, and Secret Thirteen Mix 204 by James Welburn.

• “Something vindictive resides in soot.” Timothy Jarvis on the weird fiction of Stefan Grabinski. From 2003: China Miéville on Grabinski.

• Paintings by Jakub Rozalski of eastern European peasants with mechas and werewolves.

Colm Tóibín on James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 100 years on.

Jesse Singal on why straight rural men (in the USA) have “bud-sex” with each other.

Mark Valentine recommends books on tasseography, or divination by tea leaves.

• “Northampton Calling: A Conversation with Alan Moore,” by Rob Vollmar.

Bill Schutt at Scientific American asks what human flesh tastes like.

Gwendolyn Nix on the Tritone, aka The Devil’s Musical Interval.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: _Black_Acrylic presents…Penda’s Fen Day.

• The latest Buddha Machine from FM3 is Philip Glass-themed.

Listen to The Wire’s top 50 releases of 2016

Tritone (Musica Diablo) (1980) by Tuxedomoon | Diabolus In Musica (1987) by The Foetus All Nude Review | Tritone (Musica Diablo) (2016) by Aksak Maboul