JG Ballard – Page 24 – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 18

Rogomelec (1978) by Leonor Fini. Via.

• Moving Through Old Daylight: A recording of Mark Fisher, Jim Jupp and Julian House of Ghost Box Recordings and Iain Sinclair in conversation at the Roundhouse, Camden, London, 5 June 2010. Topics under discussion included Nigel Kneale, TC Lethbridge, John Foxx, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, alchemies of sound, the homogenisation of culture, imagining space and the impersistence of memory.

• The Surreal House, “a mysterious dwelling infused with subjectivity and desire” at the Barbican, London.

• Ars Homo Erotica at the National Museum of Warsaw. Related: “(Gothenburg) Museum stops exhibition about homosexuality in religion“.

• A lot of people still arrive here looking for art by Zack aka Oliver Frey. Bike Boy, 96 pages of Frey’s exuberantly homoerotic comic strips, is published in August by Bruno Gmünder.

• “EM Forster was a virgin until the age of thirty-nine, when he had his first ‘full’ sexual experience (a ‘hurried sucking off’, Wendy Moffat informs us) with a passing soldier on a beach in Alexandria.”

• JG Ballard’s archive is accepted by the British Library, or “saved for the nation” as they rather grandiloquently describe the process. Samples from the documents to be preserved at the BBC and the Guardian.

• Shades of Ballard’s singing sculptures, Sun Boxes is a solar-powered audio installation by Craig Colorusso. There’s more at Designboom.

• Nathalie visited the MAXXI, Rome’s new museum of contemporary art designed by Zaha Hadid.

• Stephen Pinker wants everyone to stop fretting over the alleged distractions of electronic media.

• “It basically comes from love”: John McLaughlin in conversation with Robert Fripp, 1982.

• More collections of print ephemera: Agence Eureka and Ephemera Magica.

• The Serpent and the Sword, an Alan Moore rarity from 1999.

• Gulliverovy Cesty (1968) at A Journey Round My Skull.

• Within the Without: a new Thombeau Tumblr.

• The Hidden Posters of Notting Hill Gate.

• The Letters of Sylvia Beach reviewed.

• It’s Kubrick Season in St Albans.

• Riot In Lagos (1980) by Ryuichi Sakamoto still sounds futuristic thirty years on.

Engelbrecht lives to fight another day

The beat Engelbrecht had drawn for the early morning rise was a stretch of jet black water between the Jubilee Gasometer and the Municipal Slaughter House. A dank mist lay over the canal. The vampire bats were out in swarms. The bot-fly waltzed in virid clouds. You could hardly have had a better surrealist fishing day.

Thus Maurice Richardson in The Exploits of Engelbrecht, newly-printed copies of which I picked up this week from the Savoy Books’ office. This is the reprint of the Savoy edition which was published in 2000 and would have been out two years ago had various problems not intervened. As a result it’s inadvertently become an anniversary edition which is fitting since Engelbrecht was the first title in the line of books from Savoy’s publishing relaunch ten years ago. I’ve mentioned before that I was dissatisfied with my original design so it was a pleasure being able to rework the book slightly in a manner which better suits Richardson’s marvellous stories. The main change is a completely re-designed dust jacket done in three colours printed on textured paper; this has made the book a nice thing to handle as well as look at. A few new illustrations were added courtesy of Savoy artist Kris Guido. Kris is a far better cartoonist than I and his drawing of Engelbrecht facing one of his broomstick-riding foes adorns the front board.

Another cartoonist, Martin Rowson (currently at the Guardian), reviewed the earlier edition for The Independent on Sunday:

Far more obscure, but for my money the best book of the year, is The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson. Richardson, who died in 1978, was one of the old school of hacks; he later became a stalwart infester of the Colony Rooms and the sordid pubs round Soho that teemed with pissed-up talent in the 1940s and 1950s. The Exploits of Engelbrecht, the dwarf surrealist boxer, and his adventures shooting witches, boxing grandfather clocks, playing football on Mars and games of surrealist golf which last for infinity, originally appeared in Lilliput when it was at its post-war zenith. The stories were illustrated by, among others, Searle and Hoffnung. Ah, God, those were the days.

This edition is lavishly illustrated and comes with endorsements from artist James Cawthorn (who provided some illustrations and an introduction), Michael Moorcock (who provided the afterword), and JG Ballard (who provided a blurb). Since its original publication in 1950 Engelbrecht had been one of Ballard’s favourite books; I wish he could have lived long enough to see this latest edition.

Engelbrecht isn’t on sale yet as I don’t think a price has been decided on but since this is a limited run it’ll be around £25 + p&p. Any queries should be directed to Savoy Books who have a PDF of the first chapter (plus illustrations) available to read. Next up is the enormous Moorcock tome; more about that soon.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Ronald Searle book covers
• Engelbrecht again
• Mervyn Peake in Lilliput

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 4

Will at A Journey Round My Skull turned up this hand-coloured picture from Ronald Balfour’s illustrated Rubáiyát some of whose other drawings were featured here recently. That distant volcano is a curious detail. Related: Golden Age Comic Book Stories posted plates from Willy Pogány’s edition.

• Authors on authors: China Miéville on JG Ballard; Rodrigo Fresán on Jorge Luis Borges; AS Byatt on Lewis Carroll.

• Events: Alan Moore & Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley present Simultaneous Conjugation of Four Spirits in a Room at the Laing Art Gallery on March 13th, 2010 (via Arthur); in October Weirdstone will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen.

• New blogs: Wonder Kabinet / Wunderkammer, “curiosities, ephemera, and fragments from The Cutting Room Floor and Evan J Peterson”; Pencil Tool, a Tumblr by Charity Pomaybo; and another Tumblr from Mountain*7.

• Perversity Think Tank is a new book from Supervert. Download it for free or order the delicious limited edition.

• The Casual Optimist lists 10+ Flickr Groups for Book Design and Inspiration.

• Via BibliOdyssey: 400 woodcuts by Eric Gill.

• “At least in self-abuse / There’s a little dignity…” Song of the week was Hands 2 Take by The Flying Lizards from their second album, Fourth Wall (1981). I bought this when it came out but hadn’t listened to it for years. Thrilling, urgent stuff with the fabulous Patti Palladin on vocals. Play loud.

Weekend links 2

A picture for embittered lovers.

Among other things this week I’ve been working on the design for another CD featuring photos by Liz Eve, a photographer whose pictures are always a pleasure to use. (Our earlier encounters can be seen here, here and here.) The latest set have this anti-Valentine for an eye-popping cover image. I’ll be posting the finished layouts once everything is approved by the label.

• Crash: JG Ballard’s artistic legacy. Iain Sinclair on Ballard and a new art exhibition inspired by the author’s fiction.

• More art: Clive Hicks-Jenkins’ Artlog is essential reading. Lots of insights into his beautiful work.

• Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges will be released in an expanded edition on April 27th with outtakes, documentary, book and other extras.

• Sonic Youth dude and fellow Arthurian Thurston Moore has a blog.

• “That’s all it comes down to in the end, though, isn’t it? Put it in and jiggle it about a bit.” Alan Bennett & John Fortune discuss sex. A hoot.

• “I wanna walk through Sodom with a boy on my arm / Who’s so damn pretty I don’t know where I am…” A song from 1984 for Valentine’s Day: I, Bloodbrother Be (£4,000 Love Letter) by Shock Headed Peters.