Weekend links 850

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Peacock Mandala (no date) by Judith Drury.

• A few links related to my own activities this week. Firstly, the mix of the week is a guest mix I put together for The Invisible College. I haven’t made a properly mixed mix for a while. This one was made with Audacity, an application that’s free, open source and multi-platform. Secondly, there’s the news that Ghosts on the Cam, another collection of spectral tales compiled by Robert Lloyd Parry, will be published by Swan River Press in December. I’ll have more to say about my cover art for the book at a later date. And on the subject of cover art, my cover for The Legend of Charlie Fish by Josh Rowntree is being reused by Planeta9 for a Czech edition of the novel.

• Halloween approaches. At Wormwoodiana Mark Valentine looks at the first modern ghost story anthology, The Ghost Book edited by Cynthia Asquith, which was published 100 years ago this month.

• At Smithsonian Magazine: “The Icebergs is one of Frederic Edwin Church’s most spectacular paintings. For decades, no one knew where it was.”

• New music: Passage by Chris Meyer’s Alias Zone featuring Robert Rich; Window To Askoy by Strugatsky Brothers.

• RIP Mighty Sparrow. Related: Two hours of Mighty Sparrow’s music at The Explorer’s Room.

• At the BFI: Josh Slater-Williams chooses 10 great South Korean science-fiction films.

• At Nautilus: This obscure 1960s guide to LSD holds up. Kristen French reports.

• At Colossal: The painted mandalas of Mu Pan.

• The Strange World of…Steve Reich.

• Bastardica

• Mandala (1973) by Stomu Yamash’ta’s Red Buddha Theatre | Mandala (1980) by Fondation | Sand Mandala (1997) by Philip Glass

Weekend links 494

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Aurora Borealis (1865) by Frederic Edwin Church.

• December is over-stuffed with enervating cultural lists, most of them reminding you of things which received enough attention earlier in the year. Better value than these—and always unpredictable—is John Waters‘ choice of favourite films; unpredictable and enlightening are the Secret Satan selections at Strange Flowers which come in two flavours: books originally published in English and books translated from other languages.

• Flash Of The Spirit (1988), a collaboration between Jon Hassell and African group Farafina (with production by Hassell plus Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois), receives its first ever reissue on double-vinyl and CD next year. The last piece on the album is the 11-minute Masque (Strength).

• “In 1968, Federico Fellini decided he was going make the greatest homosexual movie ever made. What he meant by a homosexual movie, no one was quite sure, but it was going to be great.” Paul Gallagher on Federico Fellini’s delirious (and distinctly homosexual) Satyricon.

• “Here’s the typography of the next decade; the age of font minimalism is coming to a close,” says Rachel Hawley. I’ve been using Didones for the past decade so I’ll carry on happily ignoring the trends.

• More obituaries for comic artist Howard Cruse: Justin Hall at The Comics Journal; Trudy Ring at The Advocate; and Richard Sandomir at the New York Times.

• “Cowley records a kind of utopian sleaze that’s breathtaking.” Brett Josef Grubisic reviews Patrick Cowley’s sex journal of the 1970s, Mechanical Fantasy Box.

• At the BFI: Carmen Gray on where to begin with Sergei Parajanov, and Matthew Thrift on 10 essential Fritz Lang films.

• A promo video by Julian House for Paul Weller’s In Another Room EP which is released in January by Ghost Box.

• At Aquarium Drunkard: San Francisco Radical Laboratory and the Mysterious Moogist of Altamont.

• Mix of the week: Through A Landscape Of Mirrors Vol. V – France III by David Colohan.

• Aurora Australis (2005) by Émilie Simon | Iceblink (Aurora Borealis Mix) (2011) by Netherworld | Aurora Liminalis (2013) by William Basinski & Richard Chartier

Lunar observations

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Seashore by Moonlight (between 1660 and 1664) by Egbert van der Poel.

The moon in art. A wide-ranging theme so there’ll be more tomorrow.

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Two Men Contemplating the Moon (1820) by Caspar David Friedrich.

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Cornfield in Moonlight (c. 1830) by Samuel Palmer.

Continue reading “Lunar observations”