{psychedelia} – Page 68 – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 12

Simulation No. 136 (1973); From the Archigram Revival Project.

• Scientific American looks at DMT: “the only psychedelic known to occur naturally in the human body”. Related: Hofmann’s Elixir: LSD and the New Eleusis, a book from the Beckley Foundation Press.

• “People weren’t quite sure what this guy was doing.” Colin Marshall talks to Eno biographer David Sheppard.

• LA FAN presents its debut group show, Eve in the Garden of Lost Angels, curated by Milla Zeltzer, at Optical Allusion Gallery, downtown Los Angeles, from May 15 to June 12, 2010.

• Masturbation: literature’s last taboo. The words “last” and “taboo” should never be used together; taboos don’t vanish, they migrate.

• Announcing the Text: Development of the Title Page, 1470–1900.

• The Anachronism is an award-wining Steampunk short about two children who discover the wreck of a giant squid submarine on a beach near their home.

• Out There is a brand new, bi-annual, international magazine for gay men and their friends.

• The Big Picture looks at the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull.

• Expo 2010 opens in Shanghai on May 1st.

• (Walter) Benjamin in Extremis.

• Nathalie returns to Bomarzo.

• Acronymic songs of the week: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (1967) by The Beatles; The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam’s Dice (1967) by The Jimi Hendrix Experience; London Social Degree (1968) by Billy Nicholls; Love’s Secret Domain (1991) by Coil.

April 17th is Record Store Day in the UK and the US, a celebration of the importance of small record shops. In the spirit of this {feuilleton} encourages you to show some love to your local music merchant if you can. There’s a website for the US side of things with details of special releases that bands have produced in support of the day. FACT Mag ran an A–Z of similar releases which will be available in the UK and the Guardian has an article interviewing Johnny Marr, Tracey Thorn, Jon Savage and others about their favourite places past and present. No surprise to see Manchester shops highlighted given the contributors; Johnny Marr plugs Piccadilly Records and Beatin’ Rhythm (the latter a great source for obscure psychedelia, among other things) while Mr Savage also recommends Kingbee out in the wilds of Chorlton, the place where he discovered The Tornados’ Do You Come Here Often, one of the songs on his Queer Noises compilation.

The art of Aquirax Uno

First Love Inferno (1968).

There’s very little web information available for Aquirax Uno, a Japanese artist active in the 1960s and 1970s who really ought to have a dedicated site. Much of his work seems to be poster art for cinema or product advertising, and, as usual on the web, what there is tends to get repeated a great deal. You can see more examples like these at Pink Tentacle, Ganymede Kids and Beautiful/Decay.

Keiko’s at Marubutsu Department Store (1967).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Alice in Acidland
• Salomé posters
• Polish posters: Freedom on the Fence
• Kaleidoscope: the switched-on thriller
• The Robing of The Birds
• Franciszek Starowieyski, 1930–2009
• Dallamano’s Dorian Gray
• Czech film posters
• The poster art of Richard Amsel
• Bollywood posters
• Lussuria, Invidia, Superbia
• The poster art of Bob Peak
• A premonition of Premonition
• Metropolis posters
• Film noir posters

Weekend links 10

One of a number of vintage ads and ephemeral items at this Flickr set.

• From 1971: The Anthony Balch/William Burroughs/Jan Herman video experiment.

• The NYT reports on World on a Wire, a neglected science fiction drama by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

• “While some of the technology industry’s brightest minds were inventing the first PCs and developing groundbreaking software, they were also feeding their heads with LSD.”

• The archive of author and illustrator Mervyn Peake has been acquired by the British Library for £410,000.

• Thames & Hudson are publishing I Wonder, a book by the wonderful Marian Bantjes, later in the year. Her site has a preview. I want.

• The gays: It’s election season in the UK so My Gay Vote looks at how the three main parties have supported LGB issues. (No data for the graphs, however.) Is theatre finally glad to be gay? Yet more Tumblrs: I heart skinny boys & Cute boys with cats.

• Trend-spotter, “svengali”, Situationist and the man who named the Sex Pistols: RIP Malcolm McLaren. The Guardian ran a number of memorial pages. Related: Anarchy in Gardenstown.

• Dublin’s One City, One Book choice for April 2010 is The Picture of Dorian Gray.

• The Catastrophist: Christopher Hitchens on JG Ballard.

• Steampunk Taxidermy by Lisa Black.

• LIFE looks back at Aleister Crowley.

• Groovy songs of the week: Julie Driscoll (with Brian Auger & The Trinity), a pair of songs by Bob Dylan—This Wheel’s On Fire—and Donovan—Season Of The Witch—and sets which look like a collaboration between Verner Panton and Marcel Duchamp. Amazing.

Weekend links 9

Own a copy of Arthur #7 (October 2003) with my swirling cover pic featuring cosmic jazz maestro Sun Ra. Lots of good stuff inside, details here.

• Spinetingler Magazine announced their nominees the 2010 Spinetingler Award this week. Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch is one of the titles in the Best Novel category while my cover for Jeff’s book is in the Best Cover category.

• A Journey Round My Skull posted the results of the Raymond Roussel illustration contest. Entrants were asked to read Roussel’s story Bertha, The Child-Flower then create a picture based on that.

• Has Dottie got legs? The New Criterion on the poetry of Dorothy Parker.

• The gays: Fuck Yeah Hot Weird Guys, more from the Tumblr hall of mirrors; Simon Callow reviews Gay Icons Through the Ages by Tom Ambrose; Wessel + O’Connor Fine Art is open again with a new exhibition at a new location in Lambertville, NJ; some things never change: “Secret tape reveals Tory backing for ban on gays.”

• “Make the inaccessible exciting.” Colin Marshall interviews Chris Bohn, editor of music magazine The Wire.

• More music: Jon Savage’s brief history of Krautrock. The new Soul Jazz compilation, Deutsche Elektronische Musik, is released next week.

• Sage of the Apocalypse; Samuel R Delany’s Dhalgren comes to the stage in New York.

• Further Penguin fetishism: “Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain.”

• Yes, they’re out there, the Clients From Hell. For a palliative there’s Herbert W Kapitzki’s elegant poster designs from the 1960s.

• Song of the week: House of Glass (1967) by The Glass Family.