Weekend links 495

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Angelus Novus (1920) by Paul Klee.

• “Compared to [László] Krasznahorkai’s earlier fiction, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming is funnier and more stylistically accessible—despite its length and seemingly endless sentences—but it is also his most unremittingly ruthless work,” says Holly Case. Elsewhere: “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming may not bring joy or consolation, but reading it is a mesmerisingly strange experience: a slab of late modernist grindcore and a fiercely committed exercise in blacker-than-black absurdity,” says Sukhdev Sandhu.

Zeitraffer (“Time-lapse“) is an exhibition devoted to Tangerine Dream which opens at the Barbican, London, in January. Also coming in January is a new album, Recurring Dreams, by the current iteration of the group which will be available on CD and double vinyl. I was impressed by the last TD release, Quantum Gate, so I’m looking forward to this even if it is only a reworking of popular pieces from the Virgin years.

• RIP Gershon Kingsley, an electronic music pioneer best known for the silly but fun albums he made with Jean-Jacques Perrey, and for being the composer of that evergreen synthesizer novelty, Popcorn.

The first major study in English of ancient Greek sexuality—especially the way relationships between men were both common and celebrated as a perfect embodiment of love—A Problem in Greek Ethics helped set the stage for the modern-day gay rights movement. But it did so surreptitiously, behind closed doors, as required by the times. Symonds printed it privately in 1883; a print run of just 10 copies reduced the risk that it would fall into the wrong hands. The typesetter complained about the content. Symonds circulated it cautiously, to people he trusted or had reason to think would be discreet. Until now, researchers believed that only five copies survived.

Rachel Wallach on the discovery of a sixth copy of John Addington Symonds’ landmark study

Contagious Magick of the Super Abundance is a book of art by the late Ian Johnstone, former partner of John Balance and cover artist for some of the last releases by Coil.

Dennis Cooper‘s favourite fiction, poetry, non-fiction, film, art, and internet of 2019. Thanks again for the link here!

• At the BFI: Hannah McGill on the umbrellas of cinema, and Jasper Sharp on 10 essential films by Yasujiro Ozu.

• Bobby Krlic, aka The Haxan Cloak, talks to Claire Lobenfield about creating the soundtrack for Midsommar.

Joker and Chernobyl composer Hildur Gudnadóttir: “I’m treasure hunting”.

Joshua Rothman on how William Gibson keeps his science fiction real.

Samantha Rose Hill on Walter Benjamin’s last work.

Scientific phenomena photographs of the year.

The Dream Before (1989) by Laurie Anderson | Angel Tech (1994) by The Grid feat. Sheila Chandra | Angel Tech (1994) by Pete Namlook & Bill Laswell

Weekend links 489

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Typhonic Neural Tantra by The Wyrding Module.

• November 2019, as many people have been noting, is the month in which Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner takes place. At Dangerous Minds Paul Gallagher writes about the unrelated William Burroughs script whose title was borrowed for Scott’s film.

• More Ridley Scott (sort of): disco was still a big thing when Alien was in the cinemas 40 years ago, so Kenny Denton reworked Jerry Goldsmith’s Alien score into a disco single which he released under the name Nostromo.

• “The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the most exciting novels ever written and on the other hand is one of the most badly written novels of all time and in any literature.” Umberto Eco on the cult of the imperfect.

• Jonathan Glazer has made a short film, The Fall, for the BBC but the corporation’s restrictions mean that (for the moment) it’s difficult to see if you live outside the UK.

• New albums at Bandcamp: Typhonic Neural Tantra by The Wyrding Module, and Emotional Freedom Techniques by Jon Brooks (aka The Advisory Circle).

• Hawkwind dancer Miss Stacia and the Barney Bubbles estate have made a line of T-shirts based on Barney Bubbles’ Space Ritual design.

Walter Murch and Midge Costin on the art of cinematic sound design.

Ivana Sekularac on the former Yugoslavia’s brutalist beauty.

• Congratulations to Strange Flowers on its 10th anniversary.

Geoff Manaugh on the witch houses of the Hudson Valley.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: 19 experimental horror films.

Fall (1968) by Miles Davis | The Fall (2011) by The Haxan Cloak | Fall (2014) by The Bug (feat. Copeland)

Weekend links 472

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Poster art by Hiroo Isono.

• “[Divine] didn’t want to pass as a woman; he wanted to pass as a monster. He was thought up to scare hippies. And that’s what he wanted to do. He wanted to be Godzilla. Well, he wanted to be Elizabeth Taylor and Godzilla put together.” I can’t help linking to yet another John Waters interview when he always has things like this to say.

• Fifty shades of grey: great towers of the Eastern bloc photographed by David Navarro & Martyna Sobecka.

• Seeking Beastliness and Defining Beauty: Clive Hicks-Jenkins on visualisations of Beauty and the Beast.

Fire Temple by Bobby Krlic (The Haxan Cloak) from the Midsommar soundtrack.

Brad Jolliff & Mark Robinson on the scientific legacy of the Apollo programme.

John Boardley on Renaissance memes and the chemical pleasure garden.

• “It’s important to go out and feel the so-called reality,” says David Lynch.

Peter Strickland talks to Robert Barry about his new film, In Fabric.

Nico in Manchester: “She loved the architecture—and the heroin”.

• Mix of the week: Secret Thirteen Mix 292 by Paco Sala.

• Andrei Codrescu on the many lives of Lafcadio Hearn.

Hiroo Isono: Into the Depths of the Sacred Forest.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Queer.

The Beast (1956) by Milt Buckner | The Beast (1989) by Rhythm Devils | Beast (1994) by Brian Eno

Weekend links 397

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Nocturnal Rome — Trajan’s Column (1934) by MC Escher.

• Many eulogies this week for the late, great Mark E Smith. Strangers to the abrasive splendour of The Fall could do worse than begin with Geeta Dayal‘s list of ten best albums. At YouTube there’s a playlist of The Fall’s Peel Sessions, from 1978 to 2004, while The Fall Quote Generator provides fragments of lyrics and interviews. “Use it like the I Ching.”

• Books with poisoned pages are usually the stuff of fiction but Shadows from the Walls of Death: Facts and Inferences Prefacing a Book of Specimens of Arsenical Wall Papers (1874) by RC Kedzie presents a serious health hazard to would-be readers.

• Man Ray: “There was more surrealism rampant in Hollywood than all the surrealists could invent in a lifetime.” Kimberly Lindbergs looks at Albert Lewin’s 1951 fantasy, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman.

• At Towleroad: “The Most Dangerous Gay Man In America Fought Violence with Violence” Eric Markowitz on the Reverend Raymond Broshears, founder in 1973 of the Lavender Panthers.

• Coming in April from Strange Attractor: All in the Downs: Reflections on Life, Landscape and Song by Shirley Collins.

• Mixes of the week: Secret Thirteen Mix 244 by Daniel O’Sullivan, and XLR8R Podcast 526 by Jamaica Suk.

• At Dennis Cooper‘s this week, a post I might have made myself (but, er, didn’t) about mirrored works of art.

• A preview of Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music and the Year Sci-Fi Exploded by Jason Heller.

• “We live in Philip K Dick’s future, not George Orwell’s or Aldous Huxley’s,” says Henry Farrell.

• Was For Your Convenience (1937) by Paul Pry the first queer city guide?

Fall (1967) by Miles Davis | Fall (2011) by The Haxan Cloak | Fall (2014) by The Bug feat. Inga Copeland

Weekend links 356

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Im Hag by ToiToiToi will be Ghost Box 027, available from 12th May. Poster and album design, as always, by Julian House.

• The week in the electronic outer limits: The Haxan Cloak recorded a new piece of music using Moog’s Mother-32 modular synths; The Herzog Tapes is a new album by The Electric Pentacle; and Drew McDowell (ex-Coil, etc) has a new album, Unnatural Channel, out next month. (Vinyl-only, unfortunately, like his previous album.)

• More from Vinyl . Album . Cover . Art: The Complete Hipgnosis Catalogue by Aubrey Powell: How to design a record cover in 1977. The feature is a duplicate of Storm Thorgerson’s account in the first Hipgnosis book but since that volume has been out of print for decades it stands repeating.

• Talismanic Bookseller: Erik Davis talks to occult-book dealer and musician Richard Bishop talks about modern grimoires, scorpion gods, Orientalist imagery, and hunting down physical books in the age of the Internet.

Arbery Books, “the UK’s leading online dealer in rare and secondhand books and ephemera of gay, lesbian and transgender interest”, is closing its website at the end of May so there’s a sale on.

Amours Secrètes: Dans L’intimité Des Écrivains, an art book about the secret loves of five French writers: Marcel Proust, Pierre Loti, Renaud Icard, Roger Peyrefitte and Jean Genet.

• Ancient Methods and Futuristic Visions: Mark Pilkington & Michael J. York of Teleplasmiste answer 15 questions.

• Mix of the week: Homer Flynn, spokesperson of The Residents, compiles a playlist for The Wire.

Adrian Searle on Queer British Art 1861–1967 at Tate Britain: “strange, sexy, heartwrenching”.

Strange Flowers on August Endell (1871–1925) and the trees of spring.

Urania (1995) by Panasonic | Pan Finale (2010) by Pan Sonic | 5′ 42” (2014) by Pan Sonic