Michael Moorcock – Page 15

Weekend links 130

Sarah and Writhing Octopus (New Wave Series, 1992) by Masami Teraoka.

Strange Flowers continues to push all my buttons. For a while now I’d been intent on writing something about the strange (unbuilt) temples designed by German artist/obsessive naturist Fidus (Hugo Höppener) but I reckon James has done a better job than I would have managed. Also last week he wrote about Schloss Schleißheim, a palatial estate outside Munich with connections to Last Year in Marienbad and another eccentric, pseudonymous German artist: Alastair (Hans Henning Voigt).

• The circus poster that inspired John Lennon’s Sgt. Pepper song Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! has been reproduced as a limited edition letterpress print. Related: Wikipedia’s page about Pablo Fanque (1796–1871), “the first black circus proprietor in Britain”.

• The first two volumes of The Graphic Canon, both edited by Russ Kick, are reviewed at Literary Kicks. I’ve not seen either of these yet but volume 2 contains my interpretation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Related: the second book previewed at Brain Pickings.

You only have to read [Alan Bennett’s] diaries to see that, underneath the wit and humour and sandwich-filled pottering around old churches, there is a deep resentment at what has happened to England in his lifetime and an instinctive distrust, sometimes amounting to deep loathing, of most politicians. Listening, for instance, to Alan Clark and Kenneth Clarke talking on the radio about the arrest of General Pinochet in 1998, he writes: “Both have that built-in shrug characteristic of 80s Conservatism, electrodes on the testicles a small price to pay when economic recovery’s at stake.”

Michael Billington on Alan Bennett: a quiet radical

• Hauntologists mine the past for music’s future: Mark Pilkington draws a Venn diagram encompassing Coil, Broadcast, the Ghost Box label, Arthur Machen, MR James, Nigel Kneale, Iain Sinclair and others.

• Hell Is a City: the making of a cult classic – in pictures. The mean streets of Manchester given the thriller treatment by Hammer Films in 1959. The film is released on DVD this month.

• The Function Room: The Kollection, Matt Leyshon’s debut volume of horror stories, has just been published. The cover painting is one of my pieces from the 1990s.

• New Worlds magazine (now apparently known as “Michael Moorcock’s New Worlds“) has been relaunched online.

A drawing from Anatomy (part 1), a series by Alex Konahin.

• The forthcoming Scott Walker album, Bish Bosch, will be released on December 3rd. 4AD has a trailer.

• Cormac McCarthy Cuts to the Bone: Noah Gallagher Shannon on the early drafts of Blood Meridian.

• The Velvet Underground of English Letters: Simon Sellars Discusses JG Ballard.

• Michelle Dean on The Comfort of Bad Books.

• The typewriter repairers of Los Angeles

• Cats With Famous People

• Marienbad (1987) by Sonoko | Komm Nach Marienbad (2011) by Marienbad | Marienbad (2012) by Julia Holter.

(Thanks to Ian and Pedro for this week’s picture links!)

Chute Libre science fiction

La Jungle Nue (A Feast Unknown, 1974). Illustration de Alain Le Saux.

Chute libre means “free fall” in French, and here refers to an imprint of French publisher Champ Libre that from 1974 to 1978 reprinted a series of science fiction titles under that name. The imprint is notable for a number of reasons, not least the striking covers which impress with their uniform design and bold imagery. The combination of black cover with vivid artwork is very similar to the covers Penguin were producing for their SF titles a few years earlier but since there’s little written anywhere about the French books I can’t say whether this was an influence or merely coincidence. I’ve not been able to find a complete list of all the illustrators either. At least two of the covers are the work of Moebius, rare examples of him being commissioned outside the comics medium.

The other notable aspect of the imprint is the books themselves which are an odd mix of the outrageous and sexually provocative end of SF spectrum, together with more usual fare. Some of the covers play to the provocation more than is necessary: Michael Moorcock has always been pleased by the attention his work receives in France but I’ll bet he hates that cover. Several of these titles appeared as SF in the 1970s because of other work by their authors despite there being nothing overtly science fictional about The Atrocity Exhibition or Breakfast in the Ruins. Farmer’s A Feast Unknown and The Image of the Beast/Blown are violent and sexually excessive, and feature little genre material, but managed to slide onto the SF shelves for the same reason. Every so often I wonder whether any of these books (or books like them) would be offered to, or accepted by, genre publishers today.

As usual, if anyone can supply information about the missing illustrators then please leave a comment.

Comme une Bête (Image of the Beast, 1974). Illustration by Moebius.

Les Culbuteurs de l’Enfer (Damnation Alley, 1974). Illustration by Jean-Claude Castelli.

Le Chaos Final (The Men in the Jungle, 1974).

Continue reading “Chute Libre science fiction”

Weekend links 116

Ankle Deep, a pyrograph by Robert Sherer whose work is showcased at The Advocate.

• “Bertrand Russell wrote in 1932, during another period of economic distress, ‘that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial societies is quite different from what always has been preached.’ ” From The Devilishness Of Idleness by Alex Gallo-Brown. Related: Owen Hatherley says “It’s the 21st century – why are we working so much?”

• Restoring James Joyce’s book of the night: Joyce biographer Gordon Bowker reviews the new edition of Finnegans Wake. Over at the NYRB Michael Chabon has a great piece about his own relationship with Joyce’s novel that manages to make some very un-NYRB references to Cthulhu, the Necronomicon and Michael Moorcock’s Elric. Related: Leopold’s Day, a limited edition (and expensive) map of Dublin using typography to depict the people and places of Bloomsday.

Verbally, it feels as though Burroughs, Joyce and Beckett are text messaging haikus back and forth: ‘beautiful/last/random fragments of poetry/finding syllables,/the waters fall/the waves fall/musical./pencil murmuring’.

James Kidd on A Humument by Tom Phillips.

• The Expanding Universe (1980), an album of early computer music by American composer Laurie Spiegel, will be reissued with additional recordings in September.

• A previously unreleased remix by Surgeon of Teenage Lighting by Coil has been made public.

Small Museum of Nature and Industry (2010) by Susan Collard.

• Queer Kids In America, a photo project by M. Sharkey.

• Walter Benjamin’s Grave: A Profane Illumination.

• The Visual Art and Design of Famous Writers.

• Nylon Sculptures by Rosa Verloop.

• Froschroom (1994) by Mouse on Mars | Bib (1995) by Mouse on Mars | Cache Coeur Naïf (1997) by Mouse on Mars.

“Die you brute!”

Since mention was made yesterday of the “Die you brute!” school of period illustration it seemed pertinent to post the picture that gave rise to the expression. This is another 19th-century ad from Victorian Advertisements (1968) by Leonard de Vries, the picture having appeared originally in The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News for November 1887. The Victorians may have been fond of their furs but they can’t be accused of downplaying the brutality behind the trade; in advertising terms this is like promoting a steak house with scenes from an abattoir. (And in that vein, see this Bovril ad from De Vries’ book.)

I produced my own variation on the theme in 2003 with this illustration for Michael Moorcock’s Samoan Giant Rat Bite Fever, his entry in the Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases . The Giant Rat is described as seven feet in length but I followed the usual form with these kinds of depictions and exaggerated the size.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Gilliam’s shaver and Bovril by electrocution

Weekend links 102

Flannery O’Connor with one of her many peacocks.

When the peacock has presented his back, the spectator will usually begin to walk around him to get a front view; but the peacock will continue to turn so that no front view is possible. The thing to do then is to stand still and wait until it pleases him to turn. When it suits him, the peacock will face you. Then you will see in a green-bronze arch around him a galaxy of gazing haloed suns. This is the moment when most people are silent.

Flannery O’Connor

Essay of the week was without a doubt Living with a Peacock by the great Flannery O’Connor, originally published in Holiday magazine in September 1961. I’d heard about Flannery’s peacocks before but had no idea she was such a pavonomane. Thanks to Jay for the tip!

• “‘He’s chameleon, comedian, Corinthian and caricature.’ But he was more like the very hungry caterpillar, munching his way through every musical influence he came across…” Thomas Jones reviews two new books about David Bowie for the LRB.

• In June Mute Records release The Lost Tapes by Can, a 3-CD collection. Here’s hoping this doesn’t merely repeat the outtakes that’ve been circulating for years as the Canobits bootlegs. This extract is certainly new.

• Animator Suzan Pitt, director of the remarkable Asparagus (1979), discusses her new film, Visitation, inspired, she says, by reading HP Lovecraft in a cabin while wolves howled outside.

• Night Thoughts: The Surreal Life of the Poet David Gascoyne, a biography by Robert Fraser reviewed by Iain Sinclair.

The Dangerous Desire (1936) by Richard Oelze (1900–1980) at But Does It Float.

• Making the Mari: the stuff of nightmares brought into the world by Jefferson Brassfield.

• The Background to the Moorcock Multiverse: Karin L. Kross reviews London Peculiar.

• Orson Welles’s lost Heart of Darkness screenplay performed for the first time.

• The Erotic Films of Peter de Rome: the new BFI DVD collection reviewed.

• Page designs by Alphonse Mucha for Ilsée, Princess de Tripoli (1897).

• A Slow-Books Manifesto by Maura Kelly.

• Tim Parks asks “Do we need stories?”.

• Musical table by Kyouei Design.

• Horror Asparagus Stories (1966) by The Driving Stupid | Peacock Lady (1971) by Shelagh McDonald | Peacock Tail (2005) by Boards of Canada.