A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Much of the work I’ve been doing for the past few weeks has been steampunk-related so I’ve been searching for more antique reference material than usual. A recent delve unearthed this pair of vintage contortionists. The photograph above dates from circa 1880 and is from the George Eastman House collection at Flickr. Also at Flickr is a great set of vintage theatre posters which includes the example below. (And also at the Library of Congress.) More about the steampunk work in due course.
It’s been a pleasure this week seeing my 1999 portrait of Cthulhu’s rotting domicile, R’lyeh, used as the cover image for Salon Futura, a new online magazine edited by Cheryl Morgan. Cheryl describes SF as “a new and hopefully somewhat different magazine devoted to the discussion of science fiction, fantasy and other forms of speculative literature.” Among the contents there’s a podcast interview with Gary K Wolfe, Nnedi Okorafor and Fábio Fernandes (the latter is a contributor to the steampunk book I’m currently designing for Tachyon); there are video interviews with writers Lauren Beukes and China Miéville, and the Guardian‘s Sam Jordison writes an appraisal of EL Doctorow’s 1994 novel The Waterworks (about New York City’s minatory Croton Reservoir) which stimulated my interest enough to make me want to search out the book. And speaking of minatory architecture, {feuilleton} approves of the presence of Taschen’s fat volume of Piranesi works spied on China Miéville’s bookshelf. China always has interesting things to say; go and see for yourself.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Le horreur cosmique
Annie Duels The Sun (2010) by Angie Wang.
I’m interviewed again, this time by James at Cardboard Cutout Sundown. Covering familiar subjects for {feuilleton} readers: art history, design, Lovecraft, the genre/mainstream seesaw, etc. Related: Jeff VanderMeer previewed my design for the forthcoming Steampunk Reloaded.
• Battle over legacy of father of Art Nouveau. Prague authorities are demanding the paintings which comprise Alphonse Mucha’s Slav Epic be moved to the capital.
• The films that time forgot. David Thomson on ten neglected works including a cult favourite of mine, Jerzy Skolimowski’s Deep End (1970).
• The Viatorium Press: “Fine letterpress printing, digital typography, and hand painted illumination.” Among their recent productions is a poem by Clark Ashton Smith.
À la conquête du pôle (1912); Georges Méliès vs. Jules Verne.
• Taxandria, a feature-length collaboration between Raoul Servais, François Schuiten and, er, Alain Robbe-Grillet, is on YouTube. My earlier post about the film is here.
• Salvagepunk, or (maybe) Post-post-modernism: “How a music micro-trend heralds an emerging, internet-enabled, aesthetic movement.” See also the latest issue of The Wire.
• Drainspotting with Remo Camerota: documenting Japan’s creative manhole covers.
• Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of squid: a book devoted to Kraken Black Spiced Rum.
• After Stanley Kubrick. Christiane Kubrick on life without Stanley K.
• Pills and penises and kissing boys: Tara Sinn’s Kaleidoscopes.
• Found Objects: a hauntological dumping ground.
• Sandow Birk’s American Qur’an.
• RIP Frank Kermode.
• Feuerland (1968) by Theo Schumann Combo; Feuerland (1977) by Michael Rother; Feuerland (2007) by Justus Köhnke.
Behold the complexity of the Smith of Clerkenwell skeleton clock from 1865, one of many such intricate devices at this site devoted to the collection, restoration and construction of skeleton clocks old and new. The Clerkenwell manufacturers also made a musical version of this machine and I like this moonphase astronomical clock from 1870. Don’t mention Steampunk, these chronometers are surely Clockpunk if they’re anything.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Midsummer Chronophage
• The Corpus Clock
• Watch the trailer for the newly-restored version of Fritz Lang’s masterwork, Metropolis.
• My cover design for Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch was voted best cover in the 2010 Spinetingler Awards.
• Figment announces the 2nd Annual Figment Album Cover Design Contest. The judge this time round is William Schaff.
• Two interviews at The Quietus: Jon Brooks of The Advisory Circle and Richard H Kirk of Cabaret Voltaire.
• “Merely a Man of Letters.” Jorge Luis Borges interviewed in 1977.
• Another Engelbrecht: The Miniature Theatres of Martin Engelbrecht.
• The Unearthing Box Set by Alan Moore & Mitch Jenkins.
• The gays: RIP Felix Lance Falkon, author of the landmark study, A Historic Collection of Gay Art (1972). The Independent is the latest newspaper to look at sexuality in the animal kingdom.
• Publisher to Release Philip K Dick’s Insights Into Secrets of the Universe.
• Roger Ebert shows the world a draft of his unfilmed Sex Pistols screenplay, Who Killed Bambi? Jon Savage comments.
• Further Flickr sets: History of the Book/Typography and Dutch Graphic Design. Related: more Dutch graphic design at the NAGO.
• Far Red: Video by u-matic & telematique, music by Monolake.
• Has steampunk jumped Captain Nemo’s clockwork shark yet?
• An edge over which it is impossible to look.
• Songs of the week: See Emily Play by Pink Floyd and Metropolis by Kraftwerk.