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Angkor panoramas

Ta Phrom by Rob van Gils.

A Cambodian architecture post by Will from 50 Watts sent me to 360 Cities for some panoramic views of the temples of Angkor and environs. I always prefer the sight of these places in their weed-infested state even though all those weeds and tree roots were slowly destroying the stonework. For more recent photos, John McDermott’s site has many beautiful infra-red views of the temples and their statuary. (Click on the Fine Art section.)

Naga at Angkor Wat – Siem Riap, Cambodia by Tetsuyayoshi.jp.

Angkor by Vasiliy Nikitenko.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The panoramas archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Temples of Bagan
• The temples of Angkor

The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

Cover design by James Iacobelli.

The sequel to The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases is published next week in the US but we have permission to write about it before the official release. The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities is a chunky hardback of 320 pages with a host of contributors including Holly Black, Greg Broadmore, Ted Chiang, Rikki Ducornet, Amal El-Mohtar, Minister Faust, Jeffrey Ford, Lev Grossman, N.K. Jemisin, Caitlín R. Kiernan, China Miéville, Mike Mignola, Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore, Garth Nix, Naomi Novik, James A. Owen, Helen Oyeyemi, J.K. Potter, Cherie Priest, Ekaterina Sedia, Jan Švankmajer, Rachel Swirsky, Carrie Vaughn, Jake von Slatt, Tad Williams, Charles Yu and others. I provided title pages for the various sections of the book, as well as a variety of found and bespoke illustrations. And seeing as how I seldom miss an opportunity to take a dig at Rupert Murdoch (especially this week), it would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention that it’s published by an imprint of HarperCollins which means I’m currently feeling somewhat tainted by the Evil Empire. Mea culpa. When you sup with the devil, use a long spoon.

My title spread.

That aside, this is a treat for anyone who enjoys the more experimental, eccentric and surreal end of the fantasy spectrum:

After the death of Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead at his house in Wimpering-on-the-Brook, England, a remarkable discovery was unearthed: the remains of an astonishing cabinet of curiosities. Many of these artifacts, curios, and wonders related to anecdotes and stories in the doctor’s personal journals. Others, when shown to the doctor’s friends, elicited further tales from a life like no other. Thus, in keeping with the bold spirit exemplified by Dr. Lambshead and his exploits, we now proudly present highlights from the doctor’s cabinet, reconstructed not only through visual representations but also through exciting stories of intrigue and adventure. A carefully selected group of popular artists and acclaimed, bestselling authors has been assembled to bring this cabinet of curiosities to life.

From what I’ve read so far the general tone is a lot less overtly wacky than the first book, and if set beside some of the more clichéd and pedestrian fantasy works being jobbed out at the moment will probably seem downright avant garde. Editors Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have been at pains to emphasise that this isn’t another steampunk collection although seeing as how many people now equate steampunk with any kind of antique graphics that’s the way some may take it. Alan Moore aficionados should know that Alan’s piece, Objects Discovered in a Novel Under Construction, is a riff on some of the contents of his forthcoming novel Jerusalem. My illustration for that entry is below.

Jeff had some blog posts this week related to the book, one looking back at the Disease Guide, the other with details of the US tour he and Ann will shortly be undertaking. A couple of my other contributions follow.

Continue reading “The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities”

The Worlds of Mervyn Peake

Illustration by Mervyn Peake for The Sphinx by Oscar Wilde (1949).

The centenary of writer, artist and poet Mervyn Peake is being celebrated this year with a number of events in the UK. Mervyn Peake: A Centenary Celebration is a small exhibition of Peake’s drawings which has been running since April at the Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. That show ends on July 17th so if you want to be glared at by Fuchsia Groan you’re advised to get your skates on.

The Worlds of Mervyn Peake is a more substantial affair opening this week at the British Library, London, which promises to have materials from the British Library collection and the Peake archive on display. Two evenings of talks are also scheduled although the first of these, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, is now sold out. The Guardian ran a feature at the weekend with pieces by some of the people who’ll be involved in the discussions, including Michael Moorcock, who’s been championing Peake’s work since the early 1960s, and China Miéville. For those who can’t make it to the exhibitions, there are also books: The Gormenghast Trilogy has been republished in a new illustrated edition, and the British Library is selling an American edition of Maeve Gilmore’s Peake’s Progress, a 592-page selection of writings, drawings and poetry which has been out-of-print in the UK for years. Essential purchases for any Peake enthusiast.

Update: There’s also an exhibition of artwork by Mervyn Peake and Maeve Gilmore at Viktor Wynd, London. Thanks to Vadim for the tip.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• A profusion of Peake
• Joseph Cavalieri’s stained glass
• Mervyn Peake at Maison d’Ailleurs
• Peake’s Pan
• Buccaneers #1
• Mervyn Peake in Lilliput
• The Illustrators of Alice

Derek Jarman’s Neutron

Tilda Swinton in The Last of England (1988).

John Dee turned up in Derek Jarman’s Jubilee after scenes from an earlier script about the Elizabethan magus were grafted onto the punk dystopia. Jarman’s career was to be littered with these unrealised projects, the strangest of which was Neutron, an apocalyptic science fiction film he was planning following the comparative success of The Tempest in 1979. The description he gives in his “Queerlife”, Dancing Ledge, is as follows:

There are six published manuscripts of Neutron, which zig-zag their anti-heroes Aeon and Topaz across the horizon of a bleak and twilit post-nuclear landscape. ‘Artist’ and ‘activist’ in their respective former lives, they are caught up in the apocalypse, where the PA systems of Oblivion crackle with the revelations of John the Divine. Their duel is fought among the rusting technology and darkened catacombs of the Fallen civilization, until they reach the pink marble bunker of Him. The reel of time is looped—angels descend with flame-throwers and crazed religious sects prowl through the undergrowth. The Book of Revelations is worked as science fiction.

Lee [Drysdale] and I pored over every nuance of this film. We cast it with David Bowie and Steven Berkoff, set it in the huge junked-out power station at Nine Elms and in the wasteland around the Berlin Wall. Christopher Hobbs produced xeroxes of the pink marble halls of the bunker with their Speer lighting—that echo to ‘the muzak of the spheres’ which played even in the cannibal abattoirs, where the vampire orderlies sipped dark blood from crystal goblets.

If that doesn’t whet your appetite I don’t know what would. Later drafts of the script were written with Jon Savage. If the film had been made it might well have been terrible, of course, but Christopher Hobbs, who worked with Jarman on later films, as well as on Velvet Goldmine and the BBC’s Gormenghast, would at least have made it look great. David Bowie is very good in The Man Who Fell to Earth but his acting is seldom as successful elsewhere. Steven Berkoff would have been a better bet but a Bowie film would have received far more attention. Bowie discusses his involvement in a 1999 interview here (and also slags off Velvet Goldmine…booo!).

All this was happening circa 1980 when Reagan and Thatcher had just begun their insidious reigns and the Cold War was moving into a new era which generated a great deal of apocalyptic anxiety. Jarman’s response to all of this materialised in 1988 with The Last of England, his bleakest film, and a work in which we can perhaps see some of the nightmare scenes which Neutron would have conjured. I’ve never liked The Last of England very much but it contains a few sequences worth savouring, especially shots of the luminous Tilda Swinton dancing through the wasteland devastation. There’s a fragment of that here with her ripping her dress to pieces accompanied by the voice of Diamanda Galás. Meanwhile, does David Bowie still have the production designs for Neutron? If so, when do we get to see them?

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Mister Jarman, Mister Moore and Doctor Dee
• The Tempest illustrated
• In the Shadow of the Sun by Derek Jarman
• Derek Jarman at the Serpentine
• The Angelic Conversation
• The life and work of Derek Jarman

Mister Jarman, Mister Moore and Doctor Dee

Prospero (Heathcote Williams) and Miranda (Toyah Willcox), The Tempest (1979).

The Shakespeare who spun The Tempest must have known John Dee; and perhaps through Philip Sidney he met Giordano Bruno in the year when he was writing the Cena di Ceneri—the Ash Wednesday supper in the French Ambassador’s house in the Strand. Prospero’s character and predicament certainly reflect these figures, each of whom in his own way fell victim to reaction. John Dee, with the greatest library in England, skrying for the angels Madimi and Uriel (so nearly Ariel)—all of which is recorded in the Angelic Conversations—ended up, in his old age, penniless in Manchester. Bruno was burnt for heresy.

Ten years of reading in these forgotten writers, together with a study of Jung and his disciples proved vital in my approach to both Jubilee and The Tempest. As for the black magic which David Bowie thought I dabbled in like Kenneth Anger, I’ve never been interested in it. I find Crowley’s work dull and rather tedious. Alchemy, the approach of Marcel Duchamp, interests me much more.

Derek Jarman, Dancing Ledge (1991).

Damon Albarn’s opera Doctor Dee has been all over the news this week following its premier as part of the Manchester International Festival. Last weekend one of the press ads was announcing this as an “untold story”, as though no one had given much thought to the Elizabethan magus prior to Mr Albarn’s arrival. Neither the ads nor anyone associated with the production will be in a hurry to tell you that the idea for the opera came from Alan Moore who’s had a fascination with John Dee’s life and work for many years. Albarn and fellow Gorillaz cohort Jamie Hewlett approached Alan about a collaboration a couple of years ago; Alan agreed to write something on the condition that Gorillaz provide a contribution to Alan’s magazine, Dodgem Logic. They agreed, Alan set to work, having suggested John Dee as a good subject then the whole thing fell apart: Gorillaz said they were too busy to accommodate themselves to the magazine’s generous deadlines so Alan told the pair that he was now too busy to have anything further to do with their opera. This is all old news (and being a Dodgem Logic contributor I have a partisan interest in the story) but it’s worth noting since the opera will be playing elsewhere once it’s finished its Manchester run so we’ll continue to hear about it. The point is that the subject matter was Alan Moore’s choice, not Damon Albarn’s; if Alan had decided to write something about Madame Blavatsky (say) we’d now be reading reviews of Blavatsky: The Opera. Albarn can at least be commended for staying with the subject. Despite John Dee’s exile in Manchester being part of the city’s history (among other things he helped organise the first survey of the streets) you can bet the apes from Oasis have never heard of him.

Richard O’Brien as John Dee in Jubilee (1978).

All of which had me thinking how John Dee, a maverick intelligence of the Elizabethan era, has a tendency to attract equally maverick intelligences in later eras. Derek Jarman’s work returns to John Dee often enough to make the magus a recurrent theme in his films, from the scenes in Jubilee (1978) (part of an earlier script) where he’s portrayed by Richard O’Brien showing Elizabeth I the future of her kingdom, to The Tempest (1979) where Prospero’s wand is modelled on Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica, to The Angelic Conversation (1987) which borrows its title from Dee’s scrying experiments and finds via the sonnets another connection between John Dee and Shakespeare (Ariel being the contrary spirit whose magic allows a vision of the future in Jubilee). By one of those coincidences which make you think there must have been something in the air during the mid-70s, Michael Moorcock’s novel Gloriana, or The Unfulfill’d Queen was published the year Jubilee premiered, a fantasy in which the Elizabethan court is blended with its fictional counterpart from Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, and which features a Doctor John Dee as the queen’s Councillor of Philosophy. (If you want to stretch the connections further, Jenny Runacre who plays Elizabeth in Jubilee had earlier portrayed Miss Brunner in the film of Moorcock’s The Final Programme.)

My 2009 poster design for The Mindscape of Alan Moore, a documentary by Dez Vylenz. John Dee’s Sigillum Dei Aemeth appears in the film so I used this as the principal motif for the packaging design and DVD interface.

Reading the reviews it’s impossible to tell how Alan’s libretto might have fared on stage compared to the work which is now showing, the content of which draws on Benjamin Woolley’s excellent biography, The Queen’s Conjuror. Alan and Benjamin Woolley can both be found among the interviewees in a Channel 4 documentary about John Dee broadcast in the Masters of Darkness (sic) series in 2001. For those keen to delve beyond the stage show, Derek Jarman’s films are all on DVD, of course, while fragments of Alan’s libretto can be found in the fourth edition of Strange Attractor along with his notes for the rest of the opera. Charlotte Fell Smith’s life of Dee from 1909, for many years the standard study of the man, can be found online here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Tempest illustrated
• Robert Anning Bell’s Tempest
• In the Shadow of the Sun by Derek Jarman
• Designs on Doctor Dee
• Derek Jarman at the Serpentine
• The Angelic Conversation
• The life and work of Derek Jarman