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La Perspective Curieuse (1663) by Jean François Nicéron. From Curious Perspectives at BibliOdyssey. • 1612 Underture is a forthcoming album by The Eccentronic Research Council and Maxine Peake which extends the electronics + occult concept to encompass Kraftwerk and the Pendle Witches. The Quietus has a review of their album, and an interview and report [...]

Title spread for The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (2011) edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer. I was surprised this week to find myself nominated as Best Artist in the World Fantasy Awards. The results will be announced at the World Fantasy Convention in November. Among the books nominated for Best Anthology is the Thackery [...]

• More Nabokov: The University Poem by Vladimir Nabokov, translated by Dmitri Nabokov and read by Ralph Fiennes. And Breitensträter – Paolino, a short story from Nabokov’s Russian period that’s only just been translated into English. • More LSD: “For decades, the U.S. government banned medical studies of the effects of LSD. But for one [...]

Chris Marker’s feline obsession was oft-remarked: cats feature regularly in his films, and in later years he’d often send a picture of a cat to anyone requesting a portrait photo. The Immemory CD-ROM features his cartoon avatar/companion/alter-ego Guillaume, a character who later manifested in three dimensions in Marker’s corner of Second Life. All of which [...]

“A recurrent rumour says that Chris Marker and the cat Guillaume-en-Egypt sank with the Titanic.” Photo credited to Wim Wenders. In our moments of megalomaniacal reverie, we tend to see our memory as a kind of history book: we have won and lost battles, discovered empires and abandoned them. At the very least we are [...]

I would have posted this yesterday if it hadn’t been for the news about Ray Bradbury, Michael Snow’s La Région Centrale (1971) and Tony Hill’s Downside Up being related in my head if nowhere else. For anyone interested in experimental cinema Michael Snow occupies a key position with a pair of films that aspire to [...]

Johnny Trunk of Trunk Records reissued the soundtrack to The Wicker Man in 1997. Mr Trunk’s latest delve into the cultural past is Own Label: Sainsbury’s Design Studio, a book from Fuel examining the supermarket chain’s packaging design of the 1960s and 1970s. Creative Review shows some examples while I have to note the uncanny [...]

If Jean Cocteau had made a horror film it might have resembled George Franju’s dreamy and disturbing body-horror masterwork Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960). I’ve not been able to trace the artist for this poster but it’s a good example of the diluted Surrealism which was still prevalent in poster graphics at this time. If [...]

Ad Astra (1907) by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. • Andres Serrano’s works are photo prints so you can’t damage an exhibition item the way you can with a painting. That didn’t stop Catholic protestors in France attacking a copy of Piss Christ on Monday. By coincidence, Dave Maier had posted an essay about Serrano’s work a few [...]

Nite Flights (1978) by The Walker Brothers. Cover design by Hipgnosis. something attacked the earth last nite with a kick that man habit-eye cut the sleep tight boys who dreamed and dreamed of a city like the sky Scott Walker quotes Brion Gysin (and who knows what else) in Shutout (see below), one of the [...]

From the video for I See, So I See So by Broadcast. • RIP Trish Keenan of Broadcast. Tributes here and here. The Broadcast/Focus Group collaboration …investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age was The Wire‘s album of the year for 2009. Joseph Stannard interviewed Trish Keenan and James Cargill in October of that year. [...]

Fade away: Chris Marker | La Jetée and Immemory.

A curious short film over at Ubuweb by Chris Marker, John Chapman and Frank Simeone, depicting driftwood sculptures at the shore of San Francisco Bay which resemble the remnants of some Ballardian cargo cult. The film was made in 1981 and the sculptures look weathered and dated enough (rainbow stripes; what appears to be a [...]

Island Universe (2008). Island Universe is a new work by American artist Josiah McElheny at London’s White Cube gallery. McElheny’s recurrent use of glass and mirrors would be enough to capture my attention anyway—I particularly like the Modernity piece below—but Island Universe also features a specially-commissioned sound accompaniment by one of my favourite musicians, Paul [...]

Detail from La Havane by René Portocarrero; photo by C. Marker. This week’s book finds are a pair of titles I hadn’t come across before in these particular editions, another haul from the vast continent that is the Penguin Books back catalogue. Labyrinths I’ve had for years in a later edition (see below) but the [...]

Les Astronautes (1959). A nice collection of shorts by Walerian Borowczyk (1923–2006) at Ubuweb including this animated piece from 1959 which was co-directed by Chris Marker. The style is immediately reminiscent of that employed by Raoul Servais in Harpya and other films; it’s also not far removed from Terry Gilliam’s animation but it predates both. [...]

left: event poster by Hapshash & the Coloured Coat. right: International Times 14-Hour Technicolor Dream special issue, April 1967. The ICA goes psychedelic, baby. Lucky Londoners get to gorge themselves on this lot next Saturday. 2007 is a year of many anniversaries: twenty years since Acid House, thirty since the release of Never Mind The [...]

Who or what is the mysterious, grinning yellow cat? Wikipedia explains: M. Chat (also known as Monsieur Chat and Mr Chat) is the name of a graffiti cat that appeared in Paris and other European cities in the months and years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The graffiti appeared most frequently on chimneys, but has [...]

Chris Marker might be considered the Borges of cinema if that designation didn’t seem limiting, with its implication that literature is superior to cinema, that filmmakers only receive true qualification as artists through comparison to more venerable creators, and so on. Marker, then, is Marker, although who Marker is remains obscure, as this article notes: [...]