Jay Babcock – Page 7 – { feuilleton }

Prince Iskandar’s horoscope

The horoscope of Prince Iskandar, grandson of Tamerlane, the Turkman Mongol conqueror, by Imad al-Din Mahmud al-Kashi, showing the positions of the heavens at the moment of Iskandar’s birth on 25th April 1384.

From the Wellcome Trust image collection. Considering the Wellcome Trust’s medical background, there’s a surprising amount of non-scientific material in its image library, not least a collection devoted to Witchcraft. This perhaps reflects the wide-ranging interests of the Trust’s founder, Henry Wellcome. Jay Babcock and I visited the exhibition of artefacts from Wellcome’s vast collection at the British Museum in 2003 and that proved to be a similarly surprising cabinet of curiosities, including sheets of tattooed human skin and Charles Darwin’s skull-headed walking stick. I was sure I had a photograph of the latter but don’t seem able to find it if it’s still around. Never mind, the BBC has a picture, together with other items from the exhibition. Also on display there was a specially-commissioned film from the Brothers Quay which can now be seen in their DVD collection.

Via Boing Boing.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Calligraphy by Mouneer Al-Shaárani
• The Brothers Quay on DVD
• The Journal of Ottoman Calligraphy
• Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East
• The Atlas Coelestis of Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr

Ginsberg’s Howl and the view from the street

James Campbell in The Guardian this weekend writes about the arrest fifty years ago of Lawrence Ferlinghetti for his publishing Allen Ginsberg’s paean to ecstatic drug use and gay sex, Howl and Other Poems. Ferlinghetti was arrested on charges of selling (or “peddling”, as these prissy turns of phrase always have it) literature likely to be harmful to minors, even though it’s hard to imagine there were gangs of schoolkids rushing into his City Lights bookstore to buy a volume of experimental poetry. The ensuing trial was the first in a series of cases in the late Fifties and early Sixties which finally established (in America, at least) that the law needed to try and keep its hands off literary works.

America since 1957 has managed to grow up on one level, with Howl now regarded as a classic work of 20th century poetry, and grow more infantile on the other, with And Tango Makes Three, a childrens’ book about gay penguins, being the most-challenged book of 2006 according to the America Library Association; you can still rely on the “g” word to get the would-be book-burners agitated. The growing gulf between perceptions of morality in the US versus those in Europe can be seen in the way that US librarians need to hold an annual Banned Books Week to draw attention to the ongoing war between prudery and licence while there’s no equivalent to this in the UK. Britons used to look enviously at America’s freedoms of speech but the atmosphere has relaxed considerably here over the past twenty years while in America it sometimes seems that the clock is running backwards. That said, Russ Kick pointed out several years ago how, even among freedom-loving librarians, some books are more defensible than others.

The City Lights bookstore is located at 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, and by coincidence I’ve spent the past couple of days exploring that locale using Google’s remarkable Street View facility which is now a feature on their San Francisco map, together with those for New York, Miami, Las Vegas and Denver. Not all the streets in these cities have been photographed yet but it’s fascinating to not only see places you’ve already been to but then turn down a side street and see the places you missed. If you want to know what it’s like to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge then here’s your chance.

Continue reading “Ginsberg’s Howl and the view from the street”

Alan Moore in Arthur magazine

Glykon and Asmodeus by Alan Moore (1994).

Alan’s lengthy 2003 interview with Arthur magazine is now online if you missed it the first time, wherein he “gives Jay Babcock a historical-theoretical-autobiographical earful about the connection between the Arts and the Occult”. And his equally lengthy piece on the history of pornography from Arthur #25 is also on the Arthur site.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Of Moons and Serpents
• Watchmen
• Alan Moore interview, 1988

New things for April

Several disparate pieces of news worth mentioning recently, so here they are gathered together.

• Some of my Lovecraft art is to be featured in a lavish limited edition volume from Centipede Press.

Artists Inspired by HP Lovecraft
Centipede Press is now accepting pre-orders.
A unique art book available in a cloth slipcase edition and leather deluxe edition.

• Cloth edition in slipcase—2,000 copies—400 pages, four color, sewn with cloth covers, enclosed in a cloth covered slipcase. Front cover image, black embossing, two ribbon markers, fold-outs, detail views.

• The first 300 orders will receive a numbered copy with a special slipcase and a hardcover folder with an extensive suite of unbound illustrations. $395 postpaid.

• Leather edition in traycase—50 copies—400 pages, four color, sewn with full leather binding, enclosed in a giant size traycase. Front cover image debossed on front, two ribbon markers, fold-outs, detail views, signed by most living contributors. $2,000 postpaid.

This huge tome features over forty artists including JK Potter, HR Giger, Raymond Bayless, Ian Miller, Virgil Finlay, Lee Brown Coye, Rowena Morrill, Bob Eggleton, Allen Koszowski, Mike Mignola, Howard V Brown, Michael Whelan, Tim White, John Coulthart, John Holmes, Harry O Morris, Murray Tinkelman, Gabriel, Don Punchatz, Helmut Wenske, John Stewart, and dozens of others.

The field has never seen an art book like this—indeed, it is an art anthology unlike anything ever published before. Many of these works have never before seen publication. Many are printed as special multi-page fold-outs, and several have detail views. The book is filled with four color artwork throughout, all of it printed full page on rich black backgrounds. A special thumbnail gallery allows you to overview the entire contents of this 400-page book at a glance, with notations on artist, work title, publication information, size, and location, when known.

HP Lovecraft fans will simply have to have this book. Because of its sheer size and scope, this book will never be reprinted and will sell out very quickly. Twenty years down the road people will be paying huge prices for this book because of its scope and the quality of reproductions. This is the HP Lovecraft fan’s dream come true. Don’t miss it!

Yes, it is indeed expensive but this is a book for serious collectors.

• Bryan Talbot‘s new book, Alice in Sunderland, is finally out. Read a review of it here.

• Arthur Magazine is being summoned back from Avalon, which is excellent news. To celebrate, Jay Babcock has posted Alan Moore‘s history of pornography in its entirety here.

left to right: Donald Cammell, Dennis Hopper, Alejandro Jodorowsky & Kenneth Anger.

One of my favourite photographs of all time shows four directors at the Cannes Film Festival in 1971, all dolled up in their wildest afghan-and-ascot, hairy-hippy finery, and all of them on the cusp of what should have been majestic, transformative, transgressive careers in cinema that by and large never came to fruition. It was not to be—if only it had been.

• John Patterson tell you why we need Jodorowsky as much as we ever did.

Update: And while we’re at it, Eddie Campbell also has a new book out, The Black Diamond Detective Agency. Great playbill cover design.

So Much Fire to Roast Human Flesh

JUST IN TIME FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR — ARTHUR MAGAZINE LAUNCHES NEW ALBUM TO BENEFIT COUNTER-MILITARY RECRUITING CAMPAIGNS

“Let’s help give youth a balanced view of what military service REALLY means,” says Arthur editor Jay Babcock.

With wars raging across the Middle East and prospects for peace dimming, the youth of America have wised up and are starting to stay away from military recruiters in droves. Said recruiters have retaliated with aggressive—and often criminal—tactics.

An eye-opening study issued this August by the Government Accountability Office reported that “allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter wrongdoing” increased almost 50 percent between 2004 and 2005. Criminal violations more than doubled over the same period of time. Increasingly common tactics used by the nation’s 20,000 military recruiters range from lying about the financial benefits of service to threatening high school students with arrest if they back out of an enlistment process already underway. Military recruiters have also been assisting recruits in the falsification of documents to cover up conditions like autism, mental illness and serious drug problems that would bar them from service if reported. [See below for more information.]

Musician Josephine Foster is joining forces with Bastet, the publishing imprint of Arthur magazine, to help give America’s kids and parents the tools they need to protect them from the depredations of the nation’s many unscrupulous military recruiters.

On Tuesday, August 29, Arthur magazine will release So Much Fire to Roast Human Flesh, an 18-track, multi-artist compilation CD curated by Foster featuring exclusive contributions from some of the more outspoken members of the nation’s burgeoning psychedelic folk scene, including Devendra Banhart, Feathers, David Pajo and members of Espers and Spires That in the Sunset Rise. Musicians from earlier generations of the underground, such as Michael Hurley, Kath Bloom and Angels of Light, are also present.

All profits from sales of So Much Fire… will be distributed to specific counter-military recruitment and pacifist organizations and programs who effectively advise high school students and other Americans at risk of being taken advantage of by the military’s recruiters and omnipresent big-budget marketing campaigns.

“All of the musicians represented on So Much Fire… are American citizens,” said Josephine Foster. “Our voices join with many others across this land that freely question and openly oppose war. Hopefully we will raise a good sum of money to help fund the educational pacifist tasks these organizations do. They are dedicated to creating a positive counter to the rising tides of the war being waged. We hope to assist them in their efforts promoting peace and non-militarism in the United States.”

“I am deeply grateful to everyone involved in this gesture; from every musician, to Fred Tomaselli for use of his incredible painting as the cover art, to Jay Babcock and Laris Kreslins at Arthur magazine who so enthusiastically took up this idea and worked to realize it. In the end, all of the labor was donated, including the manufacturing.”

Said Arthur magazine editor Jay Babcock, “We are putting what little money we have where our mouth is. We hope that other people of conscience will do the same.”

The album’s title is taken from a line by the poet Apollinaire, who died from wounds he sustained while serving in World War I.

So Much Fire… is now available for order from Arthurmag.com and, starting August 29, from record stores across North America.

Track listing:

THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS – ‘Dragonfly’ (live)
FEATHERS – ‘Dust’
MICHAEL HURLEY – ‘A Little Bit of Love for You’
MEG BAIRD – ‘Western Red Lily (Nunavut Diamond Dream)’
ANDREW BAR – ‘Don’t Trust That Man’
GOATGIRL – ‘President Combed His Hair’
DEVENDRA BANHART – ‘I Know Some Souls’ (demo)
KATH BLOOM – ‘Baby Let It Come Down On Me’
CHARLIE NOTHING – ‘Fuck You and Your Stupid Wars’
DIANE CLUCK – ‘A Phoenix and Doves’
JOHN ALLINGHAM & ANN TILEY – ‘Big War’
JOSEPHINE FOSTER – ‘Would You Pave the Road?’
ANGELS OF LIGHT – ‘Destroyer’
RACHEL MASON – ‘The War Clerk’s Lament’
PAJO – ‘War Is Dead’
MVEE – ‘Powderfinger’
KATHLEEN BAIRD – ‘Prayer for Silence’
LAY ALL OVER IT – ‘A Place’

Read the GAO report, “Military Recruiting: DOD and Services Need Better
Data to Enhance Visibility over Recruiter Irregularities” here.

High school students, their parents and friends can learn more about
their rights when confronted by recruiters here.