A Bigger Splash (1967) by David Hockney.
• I was interviewed this week at Retrofuturista, the first interview I’ve done in a while, and more wide-ranging than they sometimes are. Subjects covered include illustration, design, weird fiction, the Reverbstorm comics, the Bumper Book of Magic, underground culture, and the deficiencies of AI art. Also my ongoing, mostly unseen, Axiom project.
• At Nautilus: Kristen French conducts a lengthy and fascinating interview with Andrew Gallimore and Donald Hoffman, a pair of reseachers seeking to upend theoretical physics by making consciousness the foundation of reality, rather than its inconvenient and inexplicable by-product.
• “My audience is film-smart, and I always say, ‘If they don’t get something, then do your homework.’ Sometimes you have homework when you come to see my movies to figure out what the references are.” John Waters talking to Marya E. Gates at RogerEbert.com.
• The Morgan Library & Museum in NYC launches an exhibition later this month: Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions. At Colossal there’s a look at some of the 20th-century art, while Smithsonian Magazine has a selection of older card designs.
• Inferno by Boards Of Canada is “probably as close to a political statement as these mystery men will ever approach.” Thus Simon Reynolds looking back over the history of the group following the release of their marvellous new album.
• Among the new titles at Standard Ebooks, the home of free, high-quality, public-domain texts: The Necromancers by Robert Hugh Benson.
• New music: Demand To Be Taken To Heaven Alive by Horse Lords; A Wave Of Alarm by Comdex; Teleportations by Danalogue.
• Dennis Cooper’s favourite fiction, poetry, non-fiction, film, art, and internet of 2026 so far. Thanks again for the link here!
• At Public Domain Review: Venetian Bridge Brawls in 17th and 18th Century Art.
• At Door of Perception: Sibylle Ruppert—The Inward Gaze of the Flesh.
• RIP David Hockney and James Blood Ulmer.
• The Strange World of…Melinda Gebbie.
• Splash One (Now I’m Home) (1966) by 13th Floor Elevators | Splash (1968) by Miles Davis | Splash (1974) by Can
A post stuffed full!
John, interesting interview. Your strength is that you are so literary in approach. I’m reminded of a comment made by Orson Welles about the young directors who came to pay respects. He said that they knew every camera set-up of every movie ever made but none of them had read anything!
Am I the only one leery of privileging hallucinogenic consciousness over normal waking consciousness? Sitting here at my desk observing a lozenge of sunlight creep across the floor is as astounding as all the psychedelic machine elves that have ever been.
Thanks, Stephen. My interest in playing with words as well as images goes back a long way for me. When we left junior school at age 11 most of us asked the teacher for farewell autographs; she signed mine crediting me as the artist/author of the class.
Re: Gallimore & Hoffmann, I don’t think they’re putting psychedelic experience above other forms of consciousness, it’s more that they think DMT experiences suggest that consciousness is the fundamental substrate of reality, not spacetime. That’s a very radical theory, and one that they want to see confirmed by mathematics. I’ll be keeping an eye out for where they go next with all of this.
Ps: The Tarot exhibition will give me an excuse to get back up to NYC. It’s been a while. I’ve been a Tarot aficionado for many years. But, wait! Can it be true? No place in this exhibition for The Great Beast? Kudos to the curators for participating in the ongoing rediscovery of Remedios Varo but surely they won’t miss an opportunity to rehabilitate Lady Frieda Harris!
True, I’ve not seen any mention of the Crowley/Harris cards but I’d be surprised if they weren’t included. Crowley’s renaming of some of the Trumps has established a pattern which many decks follow today. Even if you disapprove of Crowley’s philosophy you have to acknowledge this in any discussion of the contemporary Tarot scene.