Weekend links 812

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• RIP Béla Tarr. I came late to Tarr’s films, he’d retired from directing by the time I worked my way through most of his oeuvre in 2019. As I’m always saying: better late than never. What I never expected from reading reviews was the irreducible strangeness at the heart of the later films, as well as their meticulous construction. With regard to the latter, mention should be made of the director’s regular collaborators: Ágnes Hranitzky (wife, editor and co-director), László Krasznahorkai (writer), and Mihály Víg (composer).

More Tarr: “The whole fucking storytelling thing is everywhere the same. That’s why I decided I have to do my movies.” Tarr talking to R. Emmet Sweeney in 2012; and at Criterion, Béla Tarr: Lamentation and Laughter by David Hudson.

• “When [Fela Kuti] first saw Lemi Ghariokwu’s work, he said, ‘Wow!’ Then he plied him with marijuana and asked him to design his album sleeves. The artist recalls their extraordinary partnership – and the day Kuti’s Lagos HQ burned.”

• At Smithsonan Mag: “Hundreds of mysterious Victorian-era shoes are washing up on a beach in Wales. Nobody knows where they came from.”

• At Ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon: The collage art of Wilfried Sätty.

• At the BFI: Leigh Singer selects 10 great Lynchian films.

• At Unquiet Things: The vast luminous art of Andy Kehoe.

• At Dennis Cooper’s it’s another Jan Švankmajer Day.

• New music: Light Self All Others by Tarotplane.

• At I Love Typography: Heart-shaped books.

• At Colossal: Luftwerk.

• Sailin’ Shoes (1972) by Van Dyke Parks | Dead Man’s Shoes (1985) by Cabaret Voltaire | New Shoes (2007) by Angelo Badalamenti.

Weekend links 811

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A still from The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), a feature-length animated film by Lotte Reiniger.

Hélice 39 is a speculative-fiction journal (in Spanish) whose current issue includes an article by Marcelo Sanchez: “What did Borges think of Lovecraft?”

• Among the new titles at Standard Ebooks, the home of free, high-quality, public-domain texts: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

• Old music: Hydrophony For Dagon by Max Eastley & Michael Prime; The Adventures Of Prince Achmed by Morricone Youth.

Public Domain Review lists some of the writers whose works will enter the public domain this year.

• “Modern Japanese Printmakers celebrates vibrant mid-20th-century innovation“.

• At Nautilus: “Here’s what’s happening in the brain when you’re improvising.”

• At the BFI: Pamela Hutchinson selects 10 great films of 1926.

• New music: The Future Is Now by Pietro Zollo.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Phil Solomon Day.

• 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse.

Runaway Horses (“poetry written with a splash of blood”) (1985) by Philip Glass | Unicorns Were Horses (1996) by New Kingdom | Red Horse (2002) by Jack Rose

02026

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The Basket of Bread (1926) by Salvador Dalí.

Happy new year. 02026? An affectation via the Long Now.

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The Cello Player (1926) by Edwin Dickinson.

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Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden (1926) by Otto Dix.

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The Virgin Spanking the Christ Child before Three Witnesses: André Breton, Paul Eluard and the Artist (1926) by Max Ernst.

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The Musician’s Table (1926) by Juan Gris.

Continue reading “02026”

Harry Clarke’s Elixirs of Life

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A magazine ad.

Of all the books illustrated by Harry Clarke the most scarce are a pair of slim volumes published 100 years ago by the Jameson distillery to promote their brand of Irish whiskey. The books were never widely distributed, being given away to distillery visitors. Copies of the illustrations were still hard to find in 2011 when I wrote a brief post about them. Collections of Clarke’s work seldom pay the books much attention beyond reproducing one or two drawings but by trawling the auction houses it’s now possible to accumulate most of the illustrations. With the ongoing interest in Clarke’s work I keep expecting Jameson to publish facsimile reprints but so far this doesn’t seem to have happened. The information below is taken from Harry Clarke: His Graphic Art (1983) by Nicola Gordon Bowe. A couple more illustrations from The History of a Great House may be found in Hiroshi Unno’s exceptional study, Harry Clarke – An Imaginative Genius in Illustrations and Stained-glass Arts.


The History of a Great House — Origin of John Jameson Whiskey, containing some Interesting Observations thereon together with the Causes of Its Present Scarcity. Printed by Maunsel and Roberts Ltd, Dublin 1924 for the distillers; 24 pp, 8 x 4.75 inches, 21 black line drawings blocked in with viridian, one repeated as an endpiece, custard paper cover (8 x 5 inches), printed with additional black and viridian drawing.

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Continue reading “Harry Clarke’s Elixirs of Life”

Weekend links 809

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Atlantis by Sarah Hubacher.

• Regular readers will know Leigh Wright from his Wyrd Daze creations which I’ve linked here many times in the past. (The same goes for his frequent Mixcloud compilations.) Leigh’s wife died recently which means he now has to return to the UK from Canada where he doesn’t have permanent resident status. His request for help is here.

Melinda Gebbie’s Greatest Fits: “Ranging from painting, illustration, Comix, portraiture, eroticism and so much more, this fully illustrated and beautifully presented book is a glimpse into the unique mind of a woman forged in the fire of counterculture.”

• At The Daily Heller: Adrian Wilson’s collection of elaborate vintage fabric stamps is explored in a two-part feature here and here.

• Mixes of the week: DreamScenes – December 2025 at Ambientblog, and ASIP – Reflection on 2025 at A Strangely Isolated Place.

Dennis Cooper’s favourite fiction, poetry, non-fiction, film, art, and internet of 2025. Thanks again for the link here!

• At Colossal: “Field Kallop meditates on universal patterns through bold chromatic compositions.”

• “Scientists discover massive underwater ruins that may be a lost city of legend.”

• New music: The King In Yellow by Blarke Bayer.

• RIP Rob Reiner.

Atlantis (1955) by Les Baxter | The Atlantis Healing Harp (1982) by Upper Astral | A Man For Atlantis (2000) by Broadcast