Feb 10, 2013
A Chinese postage stamp celebrating the Year of the Snake. • Cyclopean is a collaboration from Burnt Friedman, Jono Podmore and Can founding members Jaki Liebezeit, and Irmin Schmidt. The Quietus has a preview of all the tracks from their forthcoming EP. Great stuff. • Ten Things You (Possibly) Don’t Know About Kraftwerk. Related: a […]
May 14, 2012
I’ve always preferred Against Nature as an English translation of Huysmans’ À rebours, it’s a snappier and more provocative title than Against the Grain which these days might be taken as a prescription for a paleo diet. À rebours this month is also the title of an art exhibition opening Venus Over Manhattan, a new […]
Jan 26, 2011
Not a comprehensive post by any means but a few items worthy of note for readers of Joris-Karl Huysmans’ Decadent classic. The Vera Bock cover is from a 1937 American edition which turned up here last year. Thanks to Jescie for drawing my attention to the presence of my Haunter of the Dark collection on […]
Dec 13, 2010
Monsieur Jullian as seen on the back cover of Dreamers of Decadence (1971). Here at last is the long-promised (and long!) piece about the life and work of Philippe Jullian (1919–1977), a French writer and illustrator who’s become something of a cult figure of mine in recent years. Why the fascination? First and foremost because […]
Dec 9, 2010
La mort: mon ironie dépasse toutes les autres! (1889). Two samples from a collection of Odilon Redon etchings lithographs at Gallica, an archive I’ve only recently begun to look at. A shame that the larger images scale up the content and the empty margin, often leaving a very small picture in the centre not much […]
Jul 22, 2008
“It had not been able to support the dazzling splendour imposed on it…” It was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being, indeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who spent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the passions and modes of thought that […]
Jan 31, 2007
Fantazius Mallare by Wallace Smith (1922). Ben Hecht (1894–1964) is remembered today as a notable Hollywood screenwriter. He won the first screenplay Oscar for Underworld in 1927, wrote the great screwball comedies Nothing Sacred and His Girl Friday (based on his play with Charles MacArthur, The Front Page), and worked with directors such as Howard […]
