![\"descent.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/descent.jpg\")
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My friend James Marriott died last year. He was 39. His final book, The Descent<\/em><\/a>, a study of Neil Marshall’s acclaimed horror film, is launched on Friday at the Cube Microplex<\/a> in Bristol. The book is published by Auteur, a UK imprint, in their Devil’s Advocates<\/a> series. James was finishing the book a year ago this month, and sent me a late draft for comments. In addition to examining Marshall’s film in detail he also looks at its sequel and explores the micro-genre of cavern-oriented horror. When it came to literature James preferred Robert Aickman and Thomas Ligotti; he enjoyed their cinematic equivalents too but he also had a great appetite for horror films of any description, and would happily wade through hours of giallo<\/em> trash in the hope of finding something worthwhile. I miss our long, digressive email exchanges, and the opportunity they afforded to swap new discoveries.<\/p>\n \u2022 “For artists not working in digital media \u2014 those who cut, build, draw, paint, glue, bend, and make things in the more traditional manner \u2014 there is something of a ‘Surrealist’ popularity at hand today,” says John Foster<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 At Open Culture: Duke Ellington\u2019s Symphony in Black<\/em><\/a> starring a 19-year-old Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone<\/a> performs six songs on The Sound of Soul<\/em> (1968).<\/p>\n \u2022 I’m not remotely interested in Baz Luhrman’s latest but I do like the Art Deco graphics and logos created by Like Minded Studio<\/a> for The Great Gatsby<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u2022 Alejandro Jodorowsky<\/a>: “I am not mad. I am trying to heal my soul”<\/p>\n \u2022 The Clang of the Yankee Reaper: Van Dyke Parks<\/a> interviewed.<\/p>\n \u2022 A 45-minute horror soundtrack mix<\/a> by Spencer Hickman.<\/p>\n \u2022 At But Does It Float: Album art by Robert Beatty<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 Topological Marvel: The Klein Bottle in Art<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022 Anne Billson<\/a> on The Art of the Voiceover.<\/p>\n \u2022 Soviet board-games, 1920\u20131938<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022 A Brief History of Robot Birds<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022 Le Chemin De La Descente<\/a><\/em> (1970) by Cameleon | Descent Into New York<\/a><\/em> (1981) by John Carpenter | The Descent<\/a><\/em> (1985) by Helios Creed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My friend James Marriott died last year. He was 39. His final book, The Descent, a study of Neil Marshall’s acclaimed horror film, is launched on Friday at the Cube Microplex in Bristol. The book is published by Auteur, a UK imprint, in their Devil’s Advocates series. James was finishing the book a year ago … Continue reading “Weekend links 161”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,42,4,7,22,48,3,18,15],"tags":[718,4179,277,4815,4814,4818,1296,1716,1727,680,4813,4812,1304,2947,4817,4816,3233,3800],"class_list":["post-13816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-design","category-film","category-horror","category-illustrators","category-music","category-surrealism","category-technology","tag-alejandro-jodorowsky","tag-anne-billson","tag-art-deco","tag-baz-luhrman","tag-billie-holiday","tag-cameleon-group","tag-duke-ellington","tag-helios-creed","tag-james-marriott","tag-john-carpenter","tag-john-foster","tag-neil-marshall","tag-nina-simone","tag-robert-aickman","tag-robert-beatty","tag-spencer-hickman","tag-thomas-ligotti","tag-van-dyke-parks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-3AQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}