Bumper Book of Magic – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 834

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

Weekend links 803

Ad for The United States Of America from Helix magazine, 1968.

• American composer Joseph Byrd died this week but I’ve yet to see a proper obituary anywhere. He may not have been a popular artist but he was significant for the one-off album produced in 1968 by his short-lived psychedelic group, The United States Of America. Their self-titled album has been a favourite of mine since it was reissued in the 1980s, one of the few American albums of the period that tried to learn from, and even go beyond, the studio experimentation of Sgt Pepper. The United States Of America didn’t have the resources of the Beatles and Abbey Road but they did have Byrd’s arrangements, together with an energetic rhythm section, an electric violin, a ring modulator, some crude synthesizer components, the voice of Dorothy Moskowitz, and a collection of songs with lyrics that ranged from druggy poetry to barbed portrayals of the nation’s sexual neuroses. The album became an important one for British groups in the 1990s who were looking for inspiration in the wilder margins of psychedelia, especially Stereolab, Portishead (Half Day Closing is a deliberate pastiche), and Broadcast. Byrd did much more than this, of course, and his follow-up release, The American Metaphysical Circus by Joe Byrd And The Field Hippies, has its moments even though it doesn’t reach the heights of its predecessor. Byrd spoke about this period of his career with It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine in 2013.

• At BBC Future: “The most desolate place in the world”: The sea of ice that inspired Frankenstein. Richard Fisher examines the history of the Mer de Glace in fact and fiction with a piece that includes one of my Frankenstein illustrations. The latter are still in print via the deluxe edition from Union Square.

• A Year In The Country looks at a rare book in which Alan Garner’s children describe the making of The Owl Service TV serial.

• The final installment of Smoky Man’s exploration of The Bumper Book of Magic has been posted (in Italian) at (quasi).

• At Public Domain Review: Perverse, Grotesque, Sensuous, Inimitable: A Selection of Works by Aubrey Beardsley.

• At Colossal: Ceramics mimic cardboard in Jacques Monneraud’s trompe-l’œil ode to Giorgio Morandi.

• At the Daily Heller: The “narrative abstraction” of Roy Kuhlman‘s cover designs for Grove Press.

• New music: Elemental Studies by Various Artists; and Gleann Ciùin by Claire M. Singer.

• Steven Heller’s font of the month is Archive Matrix.

• Sensual Hallucinations (1970) by Les Baxter | The Garden Of Earthly Delights (United States Of America cover) (1982) by Snakefinger | Perversion (1992) by Stereolab

Weekend links 802

November (1879) by John Atkinson Grimshaw.

• As usual, the first links in November are heavy with the spirit of Halloween. At the BFI: Zombies in the Lake District: how locations from The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue look today; Adam Scovell looks back at one of the more curious zombie films of the 1970s, a Spanish/Italian production directed by Jorge Grau in and around my home city. Also at the BFI: Georgina Guthrie selects 10 great erotic horror films.

• “We must recognise that reality without mystery is impossible.” In a recently digitised film clip, René Magritte is interviewed (in French) by Belgian TV in 1961.

• The Italian edition of The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic is out now from Panini. Thanks to Smoky Man for posting photos!

• Among the new titles at Standard Ebooks, the home of free, high-quality, public-domain texts: Short Fiction by Saki.

• At Smithsonian Mag: Elizabeth Djinis explains how an Italian town came to be known as the “City of Witches”.

• New music: The Whole Woman by Anna von Hausswolff ft. Iggy Pop; Forces, Reactions, Deflections by Scanner.

• RIP Jack DeJohnette, jazz drummer; Prunella Scales, actor; Peter Watkins, film-maker.

• Space Type Generator

• Algiers November 1, 1954 (1965) by Ennio Morricone | November Sequence (2011) by Pye Corner Audio | Richter: November (2019) by Mari Samuelsen

Weekend links 801

The Magic Circle (1886) by John William Waterhouse.

• The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic has just been published in France by Editions Delcourt. A preview here shows how carefully they’ve managed to translate and reletter my page designs.

• Among the new titles at Standard Ebooks, the home of free, high-quality, public-domain texts: Algernon Blackwood’s stories of John Silence, occult detective.

• Relevant to some of my recent reading: The Necronomicon Wars, an examination of the many attempts to give life to HP Lovecraft’s fictional grimoire.

Altered States is tremendously exciting to watch—and not only during its psychedelic interludes when goat Jesus is being crucified and writhing red figures are toppling, Hieronymus Bosch–like, into hell and abstract splotches give the impression of cells endlessly dividing or murky membranes dissolving and beautiful women stare into Magritte skies and waves of lava crash as though the molten core of humanity itself were erupting. Even in its quieter moments, it is a beautiful film, with Hurt’s every appearance shot by cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth to emphasize his character’s alien otherworldliness.

Jessica Kiang explores the creation of Ken Russell’s flawed but fascinating psychedelic feature, Altered States

• A new catalogue of lots at another After Dark: Gay Art and Culture online auction. Homoerotic art, photos, historic porn. etc.

• Tarot decks through the ages: a video showing some of the cards from Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection.

• More psychedelia: Neuroscientist Grigori Guitchounts asks “What is your brain doing on psychedelics?”

• At the Daily Heller: Ryan Hughes has published a weighty collection of his typeface designs.

• Old music: Caged (25th Anniversary Edition) by Ian Boddy & Chris Carter.

• At the BFI: Rory Doherty selects 10 great Technicolor melodramas.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: The Old School Horrors of Terence Fisher.

• Photographs from the 2025 Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

• Ambientblog celebrates 20 years of existence.

• RIP Dave Ball.

• Necronomicon (1970) by Les Baxter | Liriïk Necronomicus Kahnt (1975) by Magma | Necronomicon–The Magus (2004) by John Zorn

Weekend links 799

A Night Alarm: The Advance! (1871) by Charles West Cope.

• At Spoon & Tamago: Meet the artist creating humorous, nihonga-style images of daily life with their rescue cat.

• The thirteenth installment of Smoky Man’s exploration of The Bumper Book of Magic has been posted (in Italian) at (quasi).

• New music: I Remember I Forget by Yasmine Hamdan; Clearwater by Maps And Diagrams.

His boss was a cards-to-his-chest type named Boynt Crosstown—and here I admit to having dropped that in as the merest excuse to revel right now in more of Pynchon’s christenings: Dr. Swampscott Vobe, Wisebroad’s Shoes, Connie McSpool, Glow Tripworth de Vasta, Cousin Begonia, “child sensation Squeezita Thickly”—for this author’s longstanding genius there on that private swivel chair of the Department of Character Appellations matches long-gone Lord Dunsany’s for imaginary gods and cities.

William T. Vollmann reviews Shadow Ticket, the new novel by Thomas Pynchon

• At Colossal: Twelve trailblazing women artists transform interior spaces in Dream Rooms.

• At Public Domain Review: Ballooning exploits in Travels in the Air (1871 edition).

• At the BFI: Josh Slater-Williams on where to begin with the films of Satoshi Kon.

• Colm Tóibín explains why he set up a press to publish László Krasznahorkai.

• At Print Mag: Ken Carbone on a pool of perfection in Paris.

• Mix of the week: Bleep Mix #310 by Rafael Anton Irisarri.

• Steven Heller’s font of the month is OTC Textura.

• Ron Mael’s favourite albums.

• Shadowplay (1979) by Joy Division | Shadow (1982) by Brian Eno | Shadows (1994) by Pram