Imaginary Numbers (1954) by Yves Tanguy.
• “In all his writing, Ballard seems to embrace the opposed extremes of pulp genre conventions on the one hand and avant-garde experimentation on the other, while entirely rejecting the norms of conventional literary fiction that lie between these two extremes.” Steven Shaviro reviewing The Illuminated Man: Life, Death and the Worlds of JG Ballard by Christopher Priest and Nina Allan.
• The Naturalist’s Library: A complete digital edition of William Jardine’s 40-volume series on natural history published 1833–1843.
• New music: Cooked by Oren Ambarchi; Where Light Pauses In The Silence Of The Sun by Abul Mogard / Rafael Anton Irisarri.
• Richard Dadd: the painter whose fantastical vision was unconfined by his 43 years in an asylum.
• At Colossal: “Trompe-l’œil paintings by Jason Limon reveal a hidden skeletal world.”
• “Adam Rowe is writing a new book about science fiction art.”
• Mix of the week: DreamScenes – July 2026 at Ambientblog.
• RIP Sam Neill.
• The Skeleton And The Roundabout (1968) by The Idle Race | Skeletal Framework (1981) by Eyeless In Gaza | Skeletal Remains (2002) by Bohren & Der Club Of Gore
Sorry to hear about Sam Neill. My favorite performance is as the jilted writer Eugene in Wim Wenders’ 1991 ‘Until the End of the World’. The studio heavily truncated Wenders’ preferred version so it was never properly appreciated at the time. Fortunately Wenders retained rights to the full version and was able to screen it occasionally. It became a “cult” film. There are several “director’s” versions of the film available. Criterion has a blue-ray.
The writer at the Guardian didn’t mention that there is an exhibition catalogue available in association with the Richard Dadd showing.
I ought to try that Wenders again, I only saw the truncated version but I didn’t like it at all. Neill had an interesting career, not afraid of taking unusual roles when he could easily have stuck to solid, leading-man stuff. My favourite is Żuławski’s Possession which I watched again this week. Neill’s performance holds together some really difficult and insane cinematic material.