James Joyce – Page 9 – { feuilleton }

Reverbstorm update

The photo shows a detail of the design embossed on the front board proof of the forthcoming Reverbstorm book, publication of which has been put forward while the printers address some production problems. Without getting overly technical there’s been trouble with the ink causing a number of pages to print far too dark for reasons that still aren’t clear. As a result of this I’ve still no idea when the book will be ready for sale. Be assured that any frustration would-be readers are feeling goes double for the writer and artist. More news will appear here in due course.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• James Joyce in Reverbstorm
• A Reverbstorm jukebox
• Reverbstorm: Bauhaus Horror
• Reverbstorm: an introduction and preview

Weekend links 116

Ankle Deep, a pyrograph by Robert Sherer whose work is showcased at The Advocate.

• “Bertrand Russell wrote in 1932, during another period of economic distress, ‘that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial societies is quite different from what always has been preached.’ ” From The Devilishness Of Idleness by Alex Gallo-Brown. Related: Owen Hatherley says “It’s the 21st century – why are we working so much?”

• Restoring James Joyce’s book of the night: Joyce biographer Gordon Bowker reviews the new edition of Finnegans Wake. Over at the NYRB Michael Chabon has a great piece about his own relationship with Joyce’s novel that manages to make some very un-NYRB references to Cthulhu, the Necronomicon and Michael Moorcock’s Elric. Related: Leopold’s Day, a limited edition (and expensive) map of Dublin using typography to depict the people and places of Bloomsday.

Verbally, it feels as though Burroughs, Joyce and Beckett are text messaging haikus back and forth: ‘beautiful/last/random fragments of poetry/finding syllables,/the waters fall/the waves fall/musical./pencil murmuring’.

James Kidd on A Humument by Tom Phillips.

• The Expanding Universe (1980), an album of early computer music by American composer Laurie Spiegel, will be reissued with additional recordings in September.

• A previously unreleased remix by Surgeon of Teenage Lighting by Coil has been made public.

Small Museum of Nature and Industry (2010) by Susan Collard.

• Queer Kids In America, a photo project by M. Sharkey.

• Walter Benjamin’s Grave: A Profane Illumination.

• The Visual Art and Design of Famous Writers.

• Nylon Sculptures by Rosa Verloop.

• Froschroom (1994) by Mouse on Mars | Bib (1995) by Mouse on Mars | Cache Coeur Naïf (1997) by Mouse on Mars.

Weekend links 115

Untitled painting by Suzanne Van Damme (1901–1986).

• Eric Berkowitz, author of Sex and Punishment: 4000 Years of Judging Desire, chooses five books for The Browser.

• Venus febriculosa is running another competition: Design a new cover for Brian Eno’s Music For Films.

• Paul Mayersberg and Tony Richmond on making The Man Who Fell to Earth.

When a good idea occurs, it has been prepared by a long time of reflection. But you have to be patient. We all have what I call the invisible worker inside ourselves; we don’t have to feed him or pay him, and he works even when we are sleeping. We must be aware of his presence, and from time to time stop thinking about what we are trying to do, stop being obsessed about answers, and just give him the room, the possibility, to do his work. He is tenacious, you see. He never loses hope.

Screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière discusses his remarkable career. Related: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie revisited.

• Tragic Time Capsules: Capturing the Decay of Forgotten Olympic Venues.

• Louis Menand on “The Puns and Detritus in James Joyce’s Ulysses“.

• Saul Bass’s original ending for Phase IV unearthed in Los Angeles.

• Katherine Lanpher uses witchcraft to find a New York apartment.

• Italo Calvino’s adolescence – that in-between time.

• The early film posters of Waldemar Swierzy.

• Psychedelic nano-art in oils and ferrofluids.

• David Toop has a blog.

• Callum James Paper.

• Bodies of Water (1995) by David Toop

James Joyce in Reverbstorm

A post for Bloomsday with a handful of the many and varied appearances of James Joyce in the forthcoming Reverbstorm book. Ulysses was published ninety years ago this year. Among the usual commemorations BBC Radio 4 will be dramatising the entire novel throughout the day.

But as before the lightning the serried stormclouds, heavy with preponderant excess of moisture, in swollen masses turgidly distended, compass earth and sky in one vast slumber, impending above parched field and drowsy oxen and blighted growth of shrub and verdure till in an instant a flash rives their centres and with the reverberation of the thunder the cloudburst pours its torrent, so and not otherwise was the transformation, violent and instantaneous, upon the utterance of the word.

James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

Prison and place and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

TS Eliot, The Waste Land (1922)

Continue reading “James Joyce in Reverbstorm”

Weekend links 111

The Fox (1968). Design by Bill Gold, art by Leo & Diane Dillon.

Mark Rydell’s The Fox may be regarded unfavourably now for its retrograde idea of a lesbian relationship but that’s still a great poster by the Dillons. Equally retrograde (well it was 1957) is Anders als du und ich, a film about wayward German youth directed by ex-Nazi propagandist Veit Harlan:

Klaus is a young man in post-war Berlin. He is drawn to his friend Manfred and, under the encouragement of their acquaintance, Dr. Winkler, explores the underground world of gay clubs and electronic music. His family begins to learn of his other life and do everything they can to set him straight.

A saving grace is the conspicuous deployment of Oskar Sala’s Trautonium. They’re deviants—of course they like weird electronic music! Sala’s instrument was his own invention which means it has a unique pre-Moog sound, famously used by Alfred Hitchcock in the score for The Birds. YouTube has a collection of the electronica moments from Anders als du und ich. Wait for the wrestling scene…

• Netherwood: Last Resort of Aleister Crowley by A Gentleman of Hastings. Related: Jimmy Page’s Lucifer Rising sessions part 1 and part 2.

• “This coming 16 June, [BBC] Radio 4 will be a wall-to-wall Joycefest, kicking off at 9am and running until midnight.”

• A World Where Architecture is the Driving Force Behind Society, Core77 on the Cités Obscures of François Schuiten.

• At The Hooded Utilitarian an examination of the thorny problem of adapting Lovecraft for the comics medium.

• Plates from La Plante et ses Applications Ornementales (1897–1900) by Eugene Grasset.

• Coilhouse found a rough copy of Todd Haynes’ Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story.

• Three Quick Ways to Introduce Yourself to the Work of Harlan Ellison.

• Daniel Buren’s Monumenta 2012 at the Grand Palais, Paris.

• Our Sorrows, a new video from Julia Holter.

• I, Cyclops: Monocularity in a 3-D World.

• JG Ballard: The Concordance.

• RIP Pete Cosey.

• Pete Cosey with Miles Davis et al, November 1973: Ife | Turnaroundphrase