Tove Jansson – Page 2 – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 220

Untitled painting by Aleksandra Waliszewska.

• Ben Wheatley’s forthcoming film of High-Rise by JG Ballard now has its own Tumblr. This will no doubt be spoilerific so I won’t keep on visiting but it’s there if you require it. More Ballardianism: “Worshipping the Crash” at BLDGBLOG.

• “Aickman wandered through the sixties fantasy landscape like some curmudgeonly fetch, returning from the fin de siècle heyday of the ghost story.” Boyd Tonkin profiles Robert Aickman, writer of peerless “strange stories”.

• At Dangerous Minds: “Raise a glass to Cthulhu at the Lovecraft Bar”. Looks more like a Captain Nemo bar to me (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but I appreciate the gesture.

But to demand that a work be “relatable” expresses a different expectation: that the work itself be somehow accommodating to, or reflective of, the experience of the reader or viewer. The reader or viewer remains passive in the face of the book or movie or play: she expects the work to be done for her.

Rebecca Mead on The Scourge of Relatability

• “Space as a paranoid, static rumble featuring: 20jfg, Ben Frost & Daníel Bjarnason, Coil & Eduard Artemiev”. 20 Jazz Funk Greats on the pleasures of the Solaris soundtrack.

• What do Hawkwind, Harry Nilsson, Stereolab and The Supremes have in common? David Stubbs examines the legacy of Neu! and Klaus Dinger’s “Dingerbeat”.

• A reminder that A Year in the Country features a host of worthwhile links and associations for the Hauntologically persuaded.

• Rouge Louboutin, an ad by David Lynch. Related: An improptu biscuit ad by the Eccentronic Research Council.

• Mix of the week (a year old but no matter): JG Ballard Zoom Lens Mix by Bernholz.

• At 50 Watts: More illustrated sheet music covers by Einar Nerman.

• Five book cover designers and the books that inspire them.

• Tove Jansson would have been 100 this week.

• Pangaea with modern borders

• Solaris: Dream (1990) by Edward Artemyev [sic] | Solaris (2000) by Photek | Simulacra I (2011) by Ben Frost & Daníel Bjarnason

Tom of Finland postage stamps

Finland’s most famous writer and female artist was a lesbian so it’s perhaps fitting that Tom of Finland is now firmly established as its most famous male artist. At one time you could have argued that Akseli Gallen-Kallela had more of an international profile but the rising visibility of gay art, and the pioneering erotica of Touko Laaksonen aka Tom of Finland, has changed all that. Tove Jansson’s Moomin characters have already appeared on a commemorative coin but later this year Tom of Finland’s beefy clones expose themselves to a wider public when they appear on postage stamps for the first time. The stamps have been designed by Timo Berry and Susanna Luoto. Even with all the recent social changes in the UK I can’t imagine anyone getting away with a stamp design featuring such a prominent pair of buttocks, however lovingly rendered. It’s also a sign of changing attitudes that many people today would be less likely to object to sight of a bare bum than they would to a picture of somebody smoking. There’s more about the stamp designs, including links to larger images, here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Weekend links: the queer edition

A T-shirt design by artist Daryl Vocat.

• Tove Jansson: Out of the Closet. The unorthodox life and work of the woman who gave us the Moomins.

• Submissions are now open for PANK’s October special online issue featuring Queer prose, poetry & art.

• More new magazines: Zeus and Made in Brazil Magazine, the latter being a spin-off from the justly-praised weblog of Brazilian hotness.

• An old magazine, called, er…Magazine: “Everything about Magazine was new, from the stark photoless cover design with its bold typeface to the way the men were photographed. The pictures weren’t overtly sexual, but proudly confronted the viewer in a different way: “To us, showing a face was the most important thing because back in 1980, gay people still had to hide their faces,” Lestrade says.” A few pictures from Magazine.

• Revealed: The Tradition of Male Homoerotic Art, an exhibition at the Leslie-Lohman Gallery, NYC, from May 12th.

• The programme for the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival which is running to May 16th.

• Scissor Sisters have a new album, Night Work, out next month. The cover picture is a photo of dancer Peter Reed by Robert Mapplethorpe. Antony and the Johnsons have announced a new album (and accompanying book) for October.

• Headline of the week: “Christian right leader George Rekers takes vacation with ‘rent boy’ ”. Rekers took issue with the story; his Rentboy.com escort took issue with Rekers’ issue-taking. Then things became unpleasant. And now another escort has come forward.

• Henry & Glenn Forever, “a love story to end all love stories”. “Who knew Rollins was such a caring spouse? Who knew Hall and Oates were so infernally evil—yet so considerate?”

• This week’s Tumblr silliness: Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber.

• I’m not on Facebook, nor will I ever be. If you are, however, here’s ten reasons why you should quit. The EFF has six things you need to know about Facebook Connections. Wired thinks that Facebook has gone rogue and an alternative is needed. What does Facebook publish about you and your friends? Finally, Gawker has ten reasons why you’ll be on Facebook forever.

• The Prague Pneumatic Post.

• How to serve absinthe.

• Cthulhu is not cute.

• Song of the week: Gay Messiah by Rufus Wainwright.

A winter’s tale

A winter’s tale | Tove Jansson’s The True Deceiver.

Oliver Postgate, 1925–2008

The Clangers (and a Froglet).

Lots of eulogies for Oliver Postgate doing the rounds just now, somewhat inevitable when his Smallfilms productions for the BBC furnished the imaginations of generations of British children in the Sixties and Seventies. Smallfilms’ films matched their name, being short animations created on minimal budgets by a trio of Postgate (writing, narration), Peter Firmin (artwork and animation) and Vernon Elliot (music). Postgate’s voice was the single constant across the disparate stories. For anyone of a certain age his distinctive tones carry that punch of primal recognition common to all things which make a strong impression during childhood.

Noggin the Nog.

I watched everything Smallfilms produced but being a space-obsessed Space Age kid my favourites were always The Clangers, a family of hooting, pink creatures who shared a moon-like planetoid with a Soup Dragon and (in an orbiting nest) an Iron Chicken. Being equally obsessed with Norse mythology, however, I also enjoyed Noggin the Nog, which never seemed to get repeated very often, probably because the early films were made in black and white. Oliver Postgate seemed to like dragons; as well as the Soup Dragon, Noggin had a very traditional Ice Dragon with a pile of treasure while the otherwise non-fantasy Ivor the Engine—tales of a small Welsh steam train—included a tiny dragon among the cast of characters, perhaps derived from the national emblem of Wales. Postgate and Peter Firmin reworked some of these stories into book form and my favourite books in our school library were the Noggin the Nog ones and Tove Jansson’s tales of the Moomins. The Clangers aren’t as alien as they first appear when you know that their true identity can be found in the 1967 tale of Noggin and the Moon Mouse.

Needless to say, YouTube has numerous opportunities for us to sate curiosity or indulge nostalgia, including BBC 4’s 2005 documentary about Smallfilms. The Guardian gathered a few choice examples as an addendum to their obituary page.

• Lengthy Times obituary
• The homespun genius of Oliver Postgate
• See Emily play | The BBC meets the girl from Bagpuss

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Occultism for kids