Feb 2005 Blog

[jahsonic.com] - [Next >>]

[<<] February 2005 Blog [>>]

On Expo - Film - In concert

WWW jahsonic.com

"Method of this work:
literary montage.
I have nothing to say only to show."
(Passagenwerk (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin)

2005 February (1) | 2005 February (2) | 2005 February (3)
2005, Feb 28; 14:31 ::: John Currin (2003) - Robert Rosenblum

John Currin (2003) - Robert Rosenblum [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
From Publishers Weekly
Currin is currently generating the kind of buzz that purchased publicity alone can't account for, and it's easy to see why: his paintings' smoothly executed combination of droll social commentary, offhand reference to old masters and va-va-va-voom sexuality is hard to look away from-and easy to argue about. Unlike his colleague in pneumatic inspiration, Lisa Yuskavage, Currin can't hide behind presumptive feminist theory. Are the anatomically impossible figures Currin so lovingly depicts pitiable projections of an arrested sexuality or a brave exploration of (in the words of essayist Rosenblum) "the crumbling myths and icons of twentieth-century America, revealing, as in a warped looking glass, their bizarre surface and their dark underside"? Given that America's "dark underside" has been exposed almost as often as its "innocence" has been violated, such critical formulations could easily be mistaken for intellectual window dressing. But a combination of confident execution and the often subtle referencing of everyone from Vargas to Lucas Cranach means that although there may not be more to Currin's paintings than meets the eye, what meets the eye holds interest beyond the immediate moment of shock or titillation. Currin is his own best advocate here; his long interview with Rochelle Steiner-bluntly plainspoken, knowledgeable and entirely pleased with the fuss his work has caused-candidly reveals an engaging and unashamed artist on the make. The essays, as the quote from Rosenblum would indicate, are competent in a manner endemic to books like this. But neither interview nor essays can begin to compete with the 79 lush color reproductions, whose accumulation of craftily mixed signals is disturbing and compulsive. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. via Amazon.com
Product Description:
A trip to Currin-land is like a science-fiction movie, in which familiar things-Old Master works by Bruegel and Courbet, the Rococo idylls of Boucher and Fragonard, girly photos from 1960s men's magazines, and cheerful ads for wholesome American products-are transformed into figurative paintings that border on the freakish. In John Currin's universe, everything looks both commonplace and fantastic, like Norman Rockwell paintings as seen through a fun-house mirror.
Esteemed art critic Robert Rosenblum reviews Currin's output of the past 10 years in this choice monograph-the first major book on Currin's white-hot career. Seventy-five provocatively titled colorplates exemplify the artist's trademark collision of classical technique and 20th-century kitsch. Currin has already caught the attention of Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times. And what reader wouldn't be curious to see Bea Arthur Naked (1991)? --via Amazon.com
2005, Feb 28; 14:19 ::: Lisa Yuskavage : Small Paintings 1993-2004 (2004) - Tamara Jenkins

Lisa Yuskavage : Small Paintings 1993-2004 (2004) - Tamara Jenkins [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
From Publishers Weekly
It's rare for an artist barely over 40 to get his or her own catalogue of "small" paintings, let alone the large ones. And that the accompanying essay is by Slums of Beverly Hills writer-director Jenkins (rather than an art historian) testifies to name recognition beyond the art world. What Yuskavage is famous for is her paintings of young white women with exaggeratedly shaped and sized breasts, in various stages and poses of self-examination. As Jenkins writes, "[i]n this strange psychosexual universe, female figures stand alone, baring their breasts in fields of peachy pink, lemon yellow or minty blue." The paintings have struck a chord in a youth, size- and celebrity-enhancement-obsessed culture comparable only to the success of grim portraitist John Currin. Many of the 140 full-color illustrations are full-size reproductions, allowing a chilling intimacy with the work's exploration of narcissism, self-doubt and blank, inarticulate desire. --Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved., via Amazon.com
Product Description:
Both admired and censured for the in-your-face eroticism of her paintings of women, Lisa Yuskavage has emerged from the 1990s as one of the most important figurative artists working today. Called the "premier bad-girl artist" by The New York Times and lauded in The New Yorker as "an extravagantly deft painter," Yuskavage is known for her oil paintings, loaded with color and emotional content, featuring languid young women with outlandish body parts.
The small paintings that make up this book, the first monograph of her work, are often the place where the characters from the artist's larger works come alive. Exploratory in nature, these paintings provide us with a uniquely intimate look at Yuskavage's creative process-allowing us to see how they have been a method of working for more than 20 years. Writer and director Tamara Jenkins's introductory essay is a work of biography and psychoanalysis, offering an up-close look at the forces behind her work. At once sexist and feminist, real and surreal, unsettling and seductive-and always technically accomplished-Yuskavage's work continues to generate buzz and controversy. AUTHOR BIO: Tamara Jenkins is the writer and director of the film Slums of Beverly Hills as well as several award-winning short films. Her writing has been published in Zoetrope: ll-Story, Tin House Magazine, and the New York Press. She lives in New York City. --via Amazon.com
2005, Feb 28; 14:16 ::: Vanessa Beecroft : Performances 1993-2003 (2003) Marcella Beccaria

Vanessa Beecroft : Performances 1993-2003 (2003) Marcella Beccaria [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
From Publishers Weekly
As a subject for art, the female body still, after all these thousands of years, has the power to shock and subvert, no less so in the hands of Italian artist Beecroft, who uses women themselves as her medium. This 9½"×11" catalogue, which includes a huge foldout dust jacket, covers the retrospective of Beecroft's work at Turin's Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, documenting 52 of Beecroft's "performances," which involve dressing (or undressing), coiffing, painting and arranging groups of real-live "girls" (as Beecroft consistently, and rather disturbingly, refers to her most often 20-something models) with generous references to classical art, films and history. While many of the 300 color and b&w photos show cadres of nude blondes with severe makeup in near-militaristic formations and poses, the performances, Beecroft writes, depend on the almost entropic breakdown of discipline of the models: "A constant element of the performances is to start from a drawing of a precise concept and move towards the loss of order and the beginning of chaos.... The girls need to interpret the rules, making them their own, updating them every time a performance takes place." Included is an interview with Beecroft and four essays on her work, one of which is a rather intriguing analytical breakdown of elements in her pieces, such as the controversial VB50 in Sao Paulo, in which Beecroft used white girls painted black (thereby losing her corporate sponsor's approval). The flatness of the images, often blurry here when they could be sharp, do not completely capture the sense of live performance, and the models remain just that, rarely achieving in print the individuality that Beecroft says she is seeking. Still, the layout is canny, and, though deliberately lurid, the photos do convey deep questions about femininity, art and spectator-based consumerism. --Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description:
Inventor of a unique artistic language in her performance pieces, the Italian artist Vanessa Beecroft directly addresses themes central to contemporary culture everywhere: identity, multiplicity, the body and sexuality, and in the process, mixes glamour with the history of art. Known for pieces during which multiple, beautiful models stage a ritual of being and appearing, mostly in the nude, Beecroft involves the audience in a direct confrontation, pushing to the limit the tension of a happening that is simultaneously unique, real and abstract.
This book is the catalog of the Fall 2003 exhibition at Castello di Rivoli in Turin and is the most complete publication of the artist's work to date and includes critical text as well as a detailed biography and bibliography. This major retrospective of the artist will present an original interpretation of her work, and will feature a new large-scale performance along with photographic and video works. --via Amazon.com
2005, Feb 28; 13:42 ::: Flores, Indonesia

Turquoise lake, Flores Indonesia
The most famous tourist attraction in Flores is Kelimutu; three coloured lakes in the district of Ende. These coloured lakes change colours on a regular basis. The latest colours (mid 2003) were said to be turquoise, green and red. The red lake has only recently changed from being black. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flores#Tourism [Feb 2005]

2005, Feb 28; 12:31 ::: The Great Laughter

Unless we see as the meaning of life life itself, it is not hard to see all our existence and toils ultimately meaningless. Let's face it: life is tragic; personal fullfilment and social justice often hard to be found. In the end, there are only two ways to resolve life's existential meaninglessness: to let one be usurped by it, and choose self-destruction, OR, learn to laugh about it. To see life as a game it is. Every comedy of holds its portion of tragedy, and vice versa.
Mikhail Bakhtin wrote that laughter "overcomes fear, for it knows no inhibitions, no limitations. Its idiom is never used by violence and authority". Steven W. Gilbert: "Divine laughter is helpless laughter. The recognition that all social constructions are but frail, weak, and finally ineffectual in face of the inevitable regenerative force and movement of the material life force, located ridiculously (ridiculous only when you think about it) in the lower bodily stratum, calls forth an irrepressible belly laugh".
Harry Haller of Hesse's Steppenwolf was redeemed when he learned to laugh at himself. "When you laugh, they can't kill you", stated Perry Farrell on one of Porno For Pyros records.
This Great Laughter will release us, it is our ultimate salvation. --via http://phinnweb.blogspot.com/2005/02/great-laughter.html [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 27; 19:24 ::: Underground index
The mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground. - Frank Zappa

By medium: underground film - underground press (books, etc...) - underground music
Related: alternative - banned - censorship - clandestine - counterculture - crime - economy - forbidden - hidden - illegal - illicit - independent - mainstream - overground - prohibition - resistance - subculture - subversive - taboo - transgressive

Underground mining station, image sourced here.
2005, Feb 27; 18:19 ::: Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History of America's Romance With Illegal Drugs (1996) - Jill Jonnes

Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History of America's Romance With Illegal Drugs (1996) - Jill Jonnes [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
First sentence:
"In 1821 the obscure and impecunious English writer Thomas De Quincey created a minor sensation with his Confessions of an English Opium Eater..."
Amazon.com
Jill Jonnes provides a highly detailed and enormously readable history of American drug use in the 20th century, making the important point that narcotics were a problem long before their naive glorification in the 1960s. Without ever sounding preachy, she calls for re-stigmatizing illegal drugs. "The societal costs of widely available drugs clearly outweigh whatever pleasure and insight they provide to those who can handle them," she concludes. "Just Say No" may have seemed corny, but there was something to it.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
At the turn of the century, Jonnes estimates, one American in 200 was a drug addict?and most of these were genteel middle-class women taking cocaine or nostrums laced with opiates. This sweeping, highly colorful, riveting narrative resurrects a largely forgotten history of drug use and abuse in the U.S. Jonnes, who researched this topic extensively while completing her Ph.D. in American history from Johns Hopkins, strongly opposes today's illegal drug culture, arguing that marijuana, hallucinogens, cocaine and heroin are far more dangerous than alcohol and engender crime, violence, personal tragedy and a culture of irresponsibility and instant gratification. Beginning with Chinese opium dens, patent medicines and early, ostensibly antidrug Hollywood movies portraying druggies as glamorous hedonistic rebels, she moves on to jazz-age Harlem, 1950s Beat hipsters and then to the 1960s counterculture, whose gurus, like Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg, helped spread drug use to the broad middle class. Her entertaining chronicle includes side trips to 1930s Paris, the N.Y.C. mob underworld, Marseille's Corsican, CIA-abetted drug network of the 1950s and '60s and today's Colombian cocaine cartels. It culminates with a compelling argument against legalization or decriminalization, charging that privileged baby boomers forget the financial and educational advantages that allowed them to emerge from 1960s drug use relatively unscathed. --Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. via Amazon.com
2005, Feb 27; 18:03 ::: Social sciences

anthropology - communication - economics - folklore - linguistics - memetics - political science - psychology - sociobiology - sociology

2005, Feb 27; 17:34 ::: Underground economy, black markets and free markets

The underground economy consists of all trade that occurs without government permission or effectual intervention (in the form of taxation or price regulation). This market includes not only trade in legally-prohibited goods and services (such as drugs and prostitution), but trade in legal goods and services when income is not reported and consequently taxation is avoided. The term underground economy typically is not used to refer to trade in stolen goods or other coercive activities, which may more appropriately fall under the definition of the "black market." Underground economy transactions are typically cash transactions to avoid traceability by governments.
Estimates of the size of the United States portion alone of the underground economy range from $500 billion to $1 trillion.
The underground economy, when trading decisions are not the result of coercion, is arguably a free market, since, by definition, it lacks government intervention. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_economy [Feb 2005]
Black market
The black market is the sector of economic activity involving illegal economic dealings, typically the buying and selling of merchandise illegally. The goods may be themselves illegal, such as the sale of prohibited weapons or the illegal drug trade; the merchandise may be stolen; or the merchandise may be otherwise legal goods sold illicitly to avoid tax payments or licensing requirements, such as cigarettes or unregistered firearms. It is so called because "black economy" or "black market" affairs are conducted outside the law, and so are necessarily conducted "in the dark", out of the sight of the law.
Black markets are said to develop when the state places restrictions on the production or provision of goods and services that come into conflict with market demands. These markets prosper, then, when state restrictions are heavy, such as during prohibition or rationing. However, black markets are normally present in any given economy. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_market [Feb 2005]
Free market
A free market is an idealized market, where all economic decisions and actions by individuals regarding transfer of money, goods, and services are voluntary, and are therefore devoid of coercion and theft (some definitions of "coercion" are inclusive of "theft"). Colloquially and loosely, a free market economy is an economy where the market is relatively free, as in an economy overseen by a government that practices a laissez-faire, rather than either a mixed or statist economic policy. Within economics the more usual term is simply "the market", or "the market mechanism", to mean the allocation of production through supply and demand.
Free markets are advocated by proponents of economic liberalism. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market [Feb 2005]
See also: economy, free, underground
2005, Feb 27; 16:22 ::: Christiane F. Wir Kinder [Original Soundtrack] (1981) - David Bowie

Christiane F. (1981) - Uli Edel [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
1. V-2 Schneider
2. TVC 15
3. Heroes/Helden
4. Boys Keep Swinging
5. Sense Of Doubt
6. Station To Station
7. Look Back In Anger
8. Stay
9. Warzawa
see also: David Bowie
2005, Feb 27; 16:19 ::: Christiane F. (1981) - Uli Edel

Christiane F. (1981) - Uli Edel [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Description
Christiane F. (Christiane Vera Felscherinow) was a drug addict in Berlin/Germany. As of 2004, she has overcome her addiction.
Her story is well known in Germany, because Kai Herrmann and Horst Rieck, two Stern journalists, ran a series of articles about her life and her addiction which eventually led to the book and its success. The report chronicles her years 1975-1978, when she was aged 12-15.
Eventually, the series was printed as a paperback book, titled Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo. In 1981, the story was made into a film by Bernd Eichinger and Uli Edel.
Christiane F. (full name Christiane Vera Felscherinow), was born in West Berlin, Germany on May 20, 1962. Christiane is infamous for her fight with drugs, especially that of heroin. When she was 13 years old, she was a junkie and a prostitue. At 12, she took hashish; at 13 heroin and at 14 she got into the Bahnhof Zoo scene, a famous partying drug crowd from Berlin. Christiane tried to get and stay clean, but didn’t become totally clean until the birth of her son in 1996. Today, with her little son, Jan-Niklas she lives in a small apartment in Neukölln.
The German magazine, Stern, published the series ‘Wir kinder von Bahnhof Zoo’ (We, children from Bahnhof Zoo), and it became a best-seller, selling millions of copies all around the world. The book was written by ghostwritters, with the help of Christiane F. herself. Following the success of her autobiography, she filmed the screenplay about her life, in which she worked as an advisor. The film became a success as well, making millions, even though Christiane F. never actually appeared in the film about her life and addiction. Her story was directed by Ulrich Edel (aka Uli Edel), in Germany. Produced by Bernd Eichinger and Hans Weth, the film itself was derived from the screenplay by H. Weigal. The cast was carefully chosen, and the young women picked to play Christiane F. (Natja Brunkhorst), won numerous awards for her convincing role at the tender age of 14. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiane_F. [Feb 2004]
2005, Feb 27; 16:22 ::: Heroin: cultural influences

Due to both the dramatic effects of the drug on the consumer's life and the widespread use of heroin amongst artists, heroin consumption and addiction has been featured in numerous works of art, ranging from songs and films to novels. Amongst these are:

Novels

Man With the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren
Junky by William S. Burroughs
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Junk by Melvin Burgess
The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
Cain's Book by Alexander Trocchi
Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby

Factual accounts

The Heroin User's Handbook by Dr. Francis Moraes
Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (life story of Christiane F. a teenage German addict)
Permanent Midnight by Jerry Stahl
The Survival of the Coolest by William Pryor

Films

Bad Lieutenant directed by Abel Ferrara
Naked Lunch directed by David Cronenberg
Permanent Midnight directed by David Veloz
Pulp Fiction directed by Quentin Tarantino
Ray directed by Taylor Hackford
Requiem for a Dream directed by Darren Aronofsky
The Salton Sea directed by D.J. Caruso
Sid and Nancy directed by Alex Cox
Trainspotting directed by Danny Boyle
Wasted directed by Stephen T. Kay

Songs

"Comfortably Numb", by Pink Floyd
"I'm Waiting for the Man", "Heroin" and "Sister Ray" by The Velvet Underground
"Perfect Day" by Lou Reed
"Space Oddity", "The Bewlay Brothers" and "China Girl" by David Bowie
"Dead Flowers", "Sister Morphine" and "Monkey Man" by The Rolling Stones
"Black Balloon" by the Goo Goo Dolls
"Golden Brown" by The Stranglers
"Signed D.C." by Love
"Aux enfants de la chance" and "My Lady Heroine" by Serge Gainsbourg
"Chinese Rocks" by Johnny Thunders and Dee Dee Ramone
"Needle in the Hay" and "The White Lady Loves You More" by Elliott Smith
"Under the Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Cold Turkey" by John Lennon
"China Girl" by Iggy Pop
"The Needle and the Damage Done" by Neil Young
"I Believe in You" by Talk Talk
"Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth (Heroin Is So Passe)" by The Dandy Warhols
"Mr. Brownstone" by Guns N' Roses
"Junkhead" and "Real Thing" by Alice in Chains
"Aneurysm" by Nirvana
"Jesus Shootin' Heroin" by The Flaming Lips
"Surfin' on Heroin" by Forgotten Rebels
"The Needle and the Spoon" and "That Smell" by Lynyrd Skynyrd
"Just One Fix" by Ministry
"Pool Shark" by Sublime
"Times of Trouble" by Temple of the Dog
"Carmelita" by Warren Zevon
"Bad" and "Running to Stand Still" by U2
"Hand Of Doom" by Black Sabbath
"Master Of Puppets" by Metallica
"Billy" by Bad Religion
"Perfect Blue Buildings" by Counting Crows
"Angel" by Sarah McLachlan

--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Cultural_influences [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 27; 13:21 ::: The Maids (1974) Christopher Miles

The Maids (1974) Christopher Miles [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The Maids is the name of a claustrophobic 1974 film starring Glenda Jackson, Susannah York, Vivien Merchant, and Mark Burns. It is based on the play of the same name by Jean Genet and was directed by Christopher Miles.
Before it was filmed by the American Film Theatre, it ran at the Greenwich Theatre, London, with the same principal cast later used for the film version. Genet based his play on the infamous Papin sisters, Lea and Christine, who brutally murdered their employer and her daughter in Le Mans, France, in 1933.
The story can be read as an absurdist exposition on the intricate power dynamic that exists between unequals. Glenda Jackson and Suzannah York play Solange and Claire, two housemaids who construct elaborate sadomasochistic rituals when Madame (Vivien Merchant) is away. The focus of their Theatre is the murder of Madame and they take turns portraying either side of the power divide. The deliberate pace and devotion to detail guarantees that they always fail to actualize their fantasies by ceremoniously "killing" Madame at the ritual's denouement.
The Maids was filmed by cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, who deliberately implemented many of Genet's theatrical devices for the film. The camera was often static, the settings lush and extravagant. Genet's dialog is spit by Jackson in derisive fury at Madame's insouciance. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maids [Feb 2005]
Denouement
Denouement, in literature, is the end effect of a character's earlier actions. Denouement occurs after the climax. There is a "turning point" between the climax and the denouement, termed "peripeteia".
The term is borrowed into English from the French. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denouement [Feb 2005]
Maid
A maidservant or in current usage maid is a female employed in domestic service. Once part of an elaborate hierachy in great houses, today the maid may be the only domestic worker that middle and even upper-income households can afford. In the West, comparatively few households can afford live-in domestic help, usually compromising on periodic cleaners. In less developed nations, fewer educated women and limited opportunities for working women ensures a labour source for domestic work.
Maids perform typical domestic chores such as cooking, ironing, washing, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, walking the family dog, and taking care of children. In some countries, maids take on the role of a nurse in taking care of the elderly and people with disabilities. Maids are often expected to work at least fifteen hours per day. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maid [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 27; 10:46 ::: The Art of Discipline (1996) - A K S Books

The Art of Discipline: A Pictorial History of the Smacked Bottom: v. 1 (1996) - A K S Books [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Book Description
Nearly 600 exquisite images from the golden age of disciplinary illustration-including more than 60 from Louis Malteste, over 40 from G. Topfer and more than 30 from Jim Black-plus dozens of drawings by Beloti, Dagy, Hegener, Herric, Milewski, Soulier, Wigead, and many other artists.
Entire classic collections such as ‘Three Painful Years’, ‘Frenzies’, ‘Flora en Pension’, ‘A Dominant Mistress’, ‘Récits Piquants’, etc. Hundreds of unattributed drawings covering subjects such as School, Domestic Discipline, Postures, The Weaker Sex, Judicial Punishments, and many others. --via Amazon.co.uk
See also: The Alice Kerr-Sutherland Society, spanking, discipline, punishment
2005, Feb 27; 10:30 ::: Decadence: Japanese Erotic Art (2004) - Carol Gnojewski

Decadence: Japanese Erotic Art (2004) - Carol Gnojewski [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Product Description:
This is a lush coffee table art book comprising a survey of Ukiyo-e poster art, which was a genre of Japanese wood block prints of the ancient Edo period (1600-1867) that continue to inspire and inform creators of Japanese manga and anime. Decadence focuses on shunga prints, or Japanese erotica. Shunga was designed to titillate, depicting a range of traditional themes such as exotic Asian beauties in intimate, pin-up poses and dramatic couplings with fierce warriors wielding enormous "swords," macabre supernatural lovers, and bestial animals and monsters.
Many of the most historically and aesthetically significant artists of the genre are represented, including Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Kachoyojo Azumagenji, Toyohara Kunichika, Yoshiiku, and Hokusai, among others.
Modern artists through the 1990s who have been influenced or inspired by Ukiyo-e imagery are also represented, such as the Japanese underground cartoonist Suehiro Maruo, who in 1988 recreated Ukiyo-e theatre posters about a kubuki drama called 28 Murders in a manga format using current famous murderers; the tattoo artist Horiyoshi the Third; the contemporary pin-up photographer Nobuyushi Aruki; Ultraman creator Eiji Usuburaya, whose B-movie scenarios are reminiscent of kabuki plots and Ukiyo-e images; Nagisa Oshima's film In the Realm of the Senses; and others.
The color and black-and-white Ukiyo-e images may surprise Western eyes, with their highly decorative realism, attention to detail, exaggerated sexual genitalia, and almost Cubist (before Cubism) multiple perspectives, giving them a surreal, vivid, and disorienting quality. Proving the universality of fetishism and sexual fantasies, this erotic guide serves to bridge the ancient and the modern, providing a glimpse into by-gone pleasures and pleasure districts and their influences on contemporary Japanese popular culture and erotic literature. --Amazon.com
2005, Feb 27; 10:20 ::: Le Ministère de la Marine (1865) - Charles Meryon

Le Ministère de la Marine (1865) - Charles Meryon
2005, Feb 26; 11:53 ::: Wikipedia:What links here

The what links here facility [on Wikipedia] can be used to see which other articles contain links to one you are interested in. To see this information, choose the what links here link while looking at any page.
The list of links to an article is useful in a number of ways:

It gives a very rough indication of how popular a page is. Pages with many links are likely to be viewed often and should therefore be of the very best quality. Pages with few or no links may not be very popular.
Where the subject material of an article is unclear, the list of articles linking to it might provide useful context. For instance when presented with a stub about John Smith that gives only his date of birth and death, the viewing the list of links to the article might reveal that he won a gold medal in the Olympics.

This facility works also for a page that does not exist (there may be links to it, which makes it extra useful to create it). -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_links_here [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 26; 10:40 ::: Choice (2004) - Various Artists, Mixed by X-Press 2

Choice (2004) - Various Artists, Mixed by X-Press 2[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Disc: 1
1. James Brown - There Was A Time 2. Jellybean - Spillin The Beans (Les Bean Mix) 3. Incognito - Jacobs Ladder - Maw Nu Yorican Dub 4. Patti Smith - Piss Factory 5. Quartz - Beyond The Clouds 6. The Cure - Pictures Of You (Strange Remix) 7. Elkin And Nelson - Jibaro (Enrolle Long Version) 8. Jean Luc Ponty - In The Fast Lane 9. David Byrne - Big Business 10. David Astri - Dancing Digits 11. Jine - Take It To The House 12. Eric And The Good Good Feeling - Higher Than Heaven
Disc: 2
1. Hi Voltage - Lets Get Horny 2. Open House Feat Placid Angels - Aquatic 3. Pacific Blue - You Gotta Dance 4. Brian Briggs - Aeo Parts 1 And 2 5. Art Of Noise - Beatbox Div 1 6. Malcolm McClaren - First Couple Out 7. Natural Experience - Dont Leave Me 8. Carl Craig - At Les 9. The Rolling Stones - Too Much Blood 10. Voices Of East Harlem - Cashing In 11. Badder Than Evil - Hot Wheels 12. The Specials - A Message To You Rudy
see also: Azuli records
2005, Feb 26; 10:38 ::: Trax Records 20th Anniversary Collection [BOX SET] (2004) - Various Artists

Trax Records 20th Anniversary Collection [BOX SET] (2004) - Various Artist [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Disc: 1
1. Bring Down the Walls - Robert Owens 2. No Way Back [Vocal Mix] - Adonis 3. Can You Feel It [Alternate Mix] - Mr. Fingers 4. House This House - Mr. Lee 5. Jack the Bass 6. This Is Acid [Radio Mix] 7. House Nation 8. You Used to Hold Me [Kenny Jason Mix] - Xaviera Gold 9. House Music Anthem: Move Your Body - Marshall Jefferson 10. Washing Machine - Mr. Fingers 11. Acid Tracks - Phuture 12. I Can't Forget - Mr. Lee 13. Fantasy - Screamin' Rachael 14. Aw Shucks [Long Version] 15. Girls Out on the Floor 16. I've Lost Control 17. In a Vision - Virgo Four 18. I'll Never Let You Go 19. Can't Get Enough [Remix] - Liz Torres 20. Dub Love [Full Version] - Master C & J 21. Your Love - Frankie Knuckles
Disc: 2
1. Children of the Night [Radio Mix] - Kevin Irving 2. As Always [Full Vocal Version Mix] - Ricky Dillard 3. Fun With Bad Boys - Screamin' Rachael 4. Jungle [Full A-Side Version] - Jungle Wonz 5. I'll Make You Dance [Full Version] - Kool Rock Steady 6. Do It Properly [Adonis Full Version] - Adonis 7. Bird in a Gilded Cage [Full A-Side Version] - Jungle Wonz 8. 7 Ways to Jack [Full Version] - Hercules 9. Slam [Radio Mix] 10. House Beat Box 11. You Got the Love [Long Version] - Rebecca Jones 12. Baby Wants to Ride - Frankie Knuckles 13. We Live This Life [Long Version] - Paul Johnson
Disc: 3
1. Move Your Body - Marshall Jefferson 2. No Way Back [Vocal Mix] - Adonis 3. Can You Feel It [Alternate Mix] - Mr. Fingers 4. Jungle [Full A-Side Version] - Jungle Wonz 5. Dub Love [Full Version] - Master C & J 6. You Used to Hold Me [Kenny Jason Mix] - Xaviera Gold 7. Baby Wants to Ride - Frankie Knuckles 8. Children of the Night [Radio Mix] - Kevin Irving 9. As Always [Full Vocal Version Mix] - Ricky Dillard 10. You Got the Love [Long Version] - Rebecca Jones 11. Fantasy - Screamin' Rachael 12. This Is Acid [Radio Mix]
see also: trax records
2005, Feb 25; 10:42 ::: Mystery fiction

Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1941) - Edgar Allan Poe

Tales of Mystery and Imagination () - Edgar Allan Poe, Gary Kelley (Illustrator) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Amazon.com
Award-winning fantasy illustrator Gary Kelley writes, "I have selected three of Edgar Allan Poe's best short stories.... I chose 'The Fall of the House of Usher' for its classic Gothic images and its dark, melancholic central characters, including the house itself. 'The Black Cat' is ... appealing to me for its use of mystery and foreboding that takes us to a horrifying climax. 'The Cask of Amontillado' ... my personal favorite, [is] a simple narrative of revenge set in the contrasting worlds of carnival and catacomb." Click on the book's cover for a closer look, but the reproduction doesn't really do justice to the richness of color in Kelley's shadowy, atmospheric paintings. (The cat's eye is green, and its tongue is pink.) This gorgeous edition has 20 full- and double-page paintings, including a melancholy portrait of Poe; each page of text is surrounded by subtle decorative frames. The images of Roderick and Madeleine Usher are especially effective.
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a distinct subgenre of detective fiction that entails the occurrence of an unknown event which requires the protagonist to make known (or solve). It is similar to the whodunit in that the clues may often be given to the reader by subtle means. Though it is often confused with detective fiction, it does not require a crime to have occurred or the involvement of law enforcement.
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centres upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. It is closely related to mystery fiction but generally contains more of a puzzle element that must be solved, generally by a single protagonist, either male or female.
A common feature of detective fiction is an investigator who is unmarried, with some source of income other than a regular job, and who generally has some pleasing eccentricities or striking characteristics. He or she frequently has a less intelligent assistant, or foil, who is asked to make apparently irrelevant inquiries, and who acts as an audience surrogate for the explanation of the mystery at the end of the story. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detective_fiction [Feb 2005]
Early archetypes of these stories were the three Auguste Dupin tales by Edgar Allan Poe: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, and The Purloined Letter. Poe's detective stories have been described as ratiocinative tales. In stories such as these, the primary concern of the plot is ascertaining truth, and the usual means of obtaining the truth is through a complex and mysterious process combining intuitive logic, astute observation, and perspicacious inference. As a consequence, the crime itself sometimes becomes secondary to the efforts taken to solve it. The Mystery of Marie Rogêt is particularly interesting, as it is a barely fictionalized analysis of the circumstances of the real-life discovery of the body of a young woman named Mary Rogers, in which Poe expounds his theory of what actually happened. The style of the analysis, with its attention to forensic detail, makes it a precursor of the stories about the most famous of all fictional detectives, Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, who in turn set the style for many others in later years, including Holmesian pastiches such as August Derleth's Solar Pons.--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detective_fiction [Feb 2005]
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is a genre of fiction that deals with crimes, their detection, criminals, and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred. It has several sub-genres, including detective fiction (including the whodunnit), legal thriller, courtroom drama, and hard-boiled fiction. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_fiction [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 25; 10:06 ::: Psychogeography, flânerie and the dérive

The history of psychogeography is bound up with certain walking practices, notably flânerie and the dérive, which are not to be confused. Flânerie tended to be solitary, relatively leisurely, and bound up with commodities (window-shopping, second-hand books, prostitutes) on familiar ground. The dérive ignored commodities, was often communal and could be gruelling. Chtcheglov saw the dérive as potentially a kind of ambulant free-association: The dérive (with its flow of acts, its gestures, its strolls, its encounters) was to the totality exactly what psychoanalysis (in the best sense) is to language. Let yourself go with the flow of the words, says the analyst'...Chtcheglov, 'Letters from Afar', Internationale Situationniste, 9 (August 1964), p. 38 (fragment in Situationist International Anthology, ed. Ken Knabb, p. 372). Chtcheglov wrote this from an asylum, possibly La Borde, where he is often said to have been a patient of Felix Guttari. The dérive has subsequently found echoes in Lyotard, 'Driftworks' (Dérive et partir de Marx et Freud, Paris, 1973), and Deleuze and Guattari (nomadism passim, 'the schizo's stroll' in 'Anti-Oedipus'). --Phil Baker, Secret City: Psychogeography and the End of London via http://www.camdennet.org.uk/groups/soundevents/articles/item?item_id=14891 [Feb 2005]
In Guy Debord's words: "ONE OF THE BASIC situationist practices is the dérive [literally: “drifting”], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll."
The idea here is that exploring space in this way will open one up to its unseen 'psychogeographical contours', particularly in urban areas, which are all about psychogeography. This is in contrast to the usual movements of urban doyens, who move along the same paths (work - home, home - club) again and again without exploring their environments. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%E9rive [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 24; 22:51 ::: The flâneur of Charles Baudelaire’s Paris

A recent topic for fascination in architectural theory has been Walter Benjamin’s work on the flâneur of Charles Baudelaire’s Paris. This figure, more than just a wanderer, shopper or tourist, characterises one aspect of the modern city-dweller’s condition, as found in the Parisian arcades. This meandering, aimless ‘Man Without Qualities’ so informs how we understand the city, for example, as a prototype for both the cinematic subject and audience. Flânerie also has its uses as a thinking tool. City-based artistic movements in the 20th century, from the Dada and Surrealists through to Fluxus and the Situationists have all exploited similar modes of distracted attention in traversing the city. This trajectory takes us to the Situationist International in particular, who engaged with the city in a fashion analogous to the paper support for a drawing, equip us with new ways of understanding the experience of the city. As a part of my general inquiry into the role of drawing and notation in creative practice, the graphic representation of the city forms a case-study of particular interest. How do these alternatives to the traditional tools of architecture and urbanism aid or reconfigure our understandings of cities? This final section shall outline some of my own working practices. Drawn from the tradition of the architectural fantasy, which traces its history from Piranesi through Ferriss and Constant to Tschumi, Koolhaas and MVRDV. By considering architecture as a practice of representation as well as of space- and place-making, the architectural fantasy or paper project offers distinctive possibilities beyond what is commonly assumed to be simply an ‘unbuilt’ or ‘unbuildable’ project. As such, I place my reflections upon Tokyo into this tradition - I will explore the process I have worked through in re-presenting a journey taken through Shinjuku station. -- Raymond Lucas Inscribing the city: a flâneur in Tokyo via http://www.anthropologymatters.com/journal/2004-1/lucas_2004_inscribing.htm Feb [2005]
2005, Feb 24; 21:13 ::: As Nasty As They Wanna Be (1989) - 2 Live Crew

As Nasty As They Wanna Be (1989) - 2 Live Crew [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
2 Live Crew is one of the most controversial rap groups ever, largely due to the sexual themes of one album, As Nasty As They Wanna Be (1989).
As Nasty As They Wanna Be (1989) became the group's biggest hit, largely because of the single Me So Horny, which was popular in spite of little radio play. The song was based on a quote from a Vietnamese prostitute in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket.
The American Family Association, a conservative group, did not think the presence of a "Parental Advisory" sticker was enough to adequately warn listeners of what was inside the case. A lawyer affiliated with the AFA, Jack Thompson, met with Florida Governor Bob Martinez and convinced him to look in the album to see if it met the legal classification of "obscene." It was decided in 1990 that action should be taken at the local level and Nick Navarro, Broward County sheriff received a ruling from Judge Mel Grossman that probable cause for obscenity violations existed. Navarro warned record store owners that selling the album may be prosecutable. 2 Live Crew filed a suit against Navarro. That June, Judge Jose Gonzalez ruled against the album, declaring it obscene and illegal to sell. Charles Freeman, a local retailer, was arrested two days later after selling a copy to an undercover police officers, followed by the arrest of three members of 2 Live Crew after they performed some material from the album at a performance. They were acquitted soon after.
As a result of the controversy, As Nasty As They Wanna Be sold over two million copies. A few other retailers were later arrested for selling it as well. The publicity then continued when George Lucas, owner of the Star Wars universe, sued Luke Skyywalker for appropriating the name from his franchise. Skyywalker changed his name to Luke and then released an extremely political solo album Banned in the USA, legally securing the rights to Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA.
In 1991, 2 Live Crew released the very first live rap album, Live in Concert, and Sports Weekend, a full-length studio original. Neither lived up to the sales that they experienced with As Nasty As They Wanna Be. The 2 Live Crew members went their own ways after this.
In 1992, a Court of Appeals overturned the obscenity ruling from Jose Gonzales, and the decision was then upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. Fresh Kid Ice and Mr. Mixx released unreleased tracks from pre-Luke 2 Live Crew Deal With This under the name Rock on Crew, while Luke and Ice also released new solo albums, I Got Shit on My Mind and The Chinaman, respectively. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_Live_Crew [Feb 2005]
Sexually explicit
Sexually explicit material (video, photography, creative writing) presents sexual content without deliberately obscuring or censoring it. This is in contrast to typical Hollywood movies, where sexual intercourse is often hinted at, or shown with the genitalia covered.
The term is not very specific, and what is or is not sexually explicit varies from culture to culture. Visual exposure of the penis or vagina and surrounding pubic hair are widely considered sexually explicit, unobscured sexual intercourse universally so. Some also consider certain language or writing (authentic reports or fiction) to be sexually explicit.
While some observers often label all sexually explicit material as pornography, this is not generally accepted, as it does not examine the intent behind the material. For example, sexual intercourse may be shown to illustrate principles of safe sex and as such be a component of liberal sex education, or in a film it may be part of a complex story and be viewed to contribute to overall plot development. An explicit rape scene may in fact have the purpose of negative conditioning, and vivid imagery of infected genitalia is often used as part of abstinence-based sex education programs. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexually_explicit [Feb 2005]
Censorship issues
Hip hop has probably encountered more problems with censorship than any other form of popular music in recent years, due to the use of sexually and violently explicit lyrics. The pervasive use of curse words in many songs has created challenges in the broadcast of such material both on television stations such as MTV, in music video form, and on radio. As a result, many hip hop recordings are broadcast in censored form, with offending language blanked out of the soundtrack (though usually leaving the backing music intact). The result - which quite often renders the remaining lyrics unintelligible - has become almost as widely identified with the genre as any other aspect of the music, and has been parodied in films such as Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, in which a character - performing in a parody of a rap music video - performs an entire verse that is blanked out. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_Hop_music#Censorship_issues [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 24; 21:13 ::: The Golden Ass: Or Metamorphoses (100s) - Apuleius

The Golden Ass: Or Metamorphoses (100s) - Apuleius [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Lucius Apuleius (ca 123/5 CE - ca 180 CE), an utterly Romanized Berber who described himself as "half-Numidian half-Gaetulian", is remembered most for his bawdy picaresque Latin novel the Metamorphoses, better known as The Golden Ass. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apuleius [Feb 2005]
The Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius, more commonly known as The Golden Ass, is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety. Written in the second century CE, it is a precursor to the literary genre of the episodic picaresque novel, in which Rabelais, Boccaccio, Voltaire, Defoe, and many others have followed. It is an imaginative, irreverent and amusing work that relates the ludicrous adventures of one Lucius, a virile young man who is obsessed with magic. Finding himself in Thessaly, the "birthplace of magic", Lucius eagerly seeks an opportunity to see magic being performed. His over-enthusiasm leads to his accidental transformation into an ass. In this guise, Lucius, a member of the Roman country aristocracy, is forced to witness and share the misery of slaves and destitute freemen who are reduced, like Lucius, to being little more than beasts of burden by their exploitation at the hands of wealthy landowners. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass [Feb 2005]
Ribaldry [...]
Ribaldry has likely been around for the whole history of the human race, and is present to some degree in every culture. Works like Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the Cena Trimalchionis by Petronius, and the Metamorphoses or Golden Ass of Apuleius are ribald classics from ancient Europe. Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale" from his Canterbury Tales is a classic medieval example. François Rabelais showed himself to be a master of ribaldry in his Gargantua. Mark Twain's long-suppressed 1601 certainly falls in this category. More recent works like Candy by Terry Southern, films like Barbarella by Roger Vadim, or the comedic works of Russ Meyer are probably better classified as ribaldry than as either pornography or erotica. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribaldry [Dec 2004]
Picaresque [...]
The picaresque novel (Spanish: "picaresco", from "pícaro", for "rogue" or "rascal") was a popular style of novel that originated in Spain and flourished in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The term denotes a subgenre of usually satiric prose fiction and depicts in realistic, often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social degree living by his or her wits in a corrupt society.--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picaresque_novel [Oct 2004]
Serious, yet sexually explicit
Yet despite its serious subject matter, the novel remains imaginative, witty, and often sexually explicit. Numerous amusing stories, many of which seem to be based on actual folk tales with their ordinary themes of simple-minded husbands, adulterous wives, and clever lovers, as well as the magical transformations that characterize the entire novel, are included within the main narrative. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 24; 20:40 ::: The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory

The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory () - J. A. Cuddon, Claire Preston [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Product Description:
The latest installment of this trusted literary companion covers all aspects of literary theory, from definitions of technical terms to characterizations of literary movements. Geared toward students, teachers, readers, and writers alike, The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory explains critical jargon (intertextuality, aporia), schools of literary theory (structuralism, feminist criticism), literary forms (sonnet, ottava rima), and genres (elegy, pastoral) and examines artifacts, historic locales, archetypes, origins of well-known phrases, and much, much more. Scholarly, straightforward, comprehensive, and even entertaining, this is a resource that no word lover should be without.
2005, Feb 24; 18:30 ::: Semantic similarity

Semantic similarity, variously also called 'semantic closeness/proximity/nearness', is a concept whereby a set of documents or terms within term lists are assigned a metric based on the similarity of their meaning / semantic content.
An intuitive way of displaying terms according to their semantic similarity is by grouping together closer related terms and spacing more distantly related ones wider apart. This is common - if sometime subconcious - practice for mind maps and concept maps.
A naive metric for terms arranged as nodes in a directed acyclic graph like a hierarchy would be the minimal distance (in separating edges) between the two term nodes. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_similarity [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 24; 17:44 ::: The oneiric house by Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard (1884 - 1962) was a French philosopher of sciences and poetry. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaston_Bachelard [Apr 2004]
Three or four decades ago a book entitled The Poetics of Space could hardly fail to stir the architectural imagination. First published in French in 1957 and translated into English in 1964, Gaston Bachelard’s philosophical meditation on oneiric space appeared at a moment when phenomenology and the pursuit of symbolic and archetypal meanings in architecture seemed to open fertile ground within the desiccated culture of late modernism. “We are far removed from any reference to simple geometrical forms,” Bachelard wrote in a chapter entitled “House and Universe.” “A house that has been experienced is not an inert box. Inhabited space transcends geometrical space.”(2) In lyrical chapters on the “topography of our intimate being”—of nests, drawers, shells, corners, miniatures, forests, and above all the house, with its vertical polarity of cellar and attic—he undertook a systematic study, or “topoanalysis,” of the “space we love.” Although Bachelard was specifically concerned with the psychodynamics of the literary image, architects saw in his excavation of the spatial imaginary a counter to both technoscientific positivism and abstract formalism, as well as an alternative to the schematicism of the other emerging intellectual tendency of the day, structuralism. In his book Existence, Space and Architecture (1971), Christian Norberg-Schulz, the most prolific and long-term proponent of a phenomenological architecture, asserted that “further research on architectural space is dependent upon a better understanding of existential space,” citing Bachelard’s Poetics of Space together with Otto Friedrich Bollnow’s Mensch und Raum (1963), the chapter on space in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s The Phenomenology of Perception (1962; original French, 1945), and two key works by Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1962; German, 1927) and the essay “Building Dwelling Thinking” (1971; German, 1954), as fundamental texts. --Joan Ockman reviews The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard via http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/research/publications/hdm/back/6books_ockman.html [Feb 2005]
The 'oneiric house' [dream house] described by Gaston Bachelard has three or four floors; the middle ones are the stages of everyday life, the attic is the storage place of pleasant memories, whereas the basement is the place for negative remembrances, pushed outside consciousness. In the final sequences of Psycho the different floors of the Bates House obtain their meaning in accordance with Bachelard's oneiric house. Beginning her survey of the enigma of the house in the attic, Lila is forced to a panicked escape down into the basement where she finds the terrifying mummified wigged corpse of Norman's mother. -- Juhani Pallasmaa, Lived Space in Architecture and Cinema, http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/faculties/EV/designresearch/publications/insitu/copy/volume2/imprintable_architecture/Juhani_Pallasmaa/ [Feb 2005]
Furthermore, we could take the influence of cinema on today's architecture as our subject of study. Vincent Korda's visions of multi-storey atria in Things to Come, for instance, have fully materialized, five decades later, in John Portman's gigantic hotel projects. Portman's projects are an example of an architecture which cold-bloodedly serves the economic interests of the developer, utilizing means of persuasion deriving from stage sets designed for cinematic spectacles. -- Juhani Pallasmaa, Lived Space in Architecture and Cinema, http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/faculties/EV/designresearch/publications/insitu/copy/volume2/imprintable_architecture/Juhani_Pallasmaa/ [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 24; 13:12 ::: Maria Jolas, Woman of Action: A Memoir and Other Writings (2004) - Mary Ann Caws

Maria Jolas, Woman of Action: A Memoir and Other Writings (2004) - Mary Ann Caws [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Maria Jolas, born Maria McDonald on January 12, 1893, Louisville, Kentucky, United States - died March 4, 1987 in Paris, France, was one of the founding members of transition in Paris, France with her husband Eugene Jolas.
Jolas also translated many works including Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space.
Maria Jolas, Woman of Action - A Memoir and Other Writings was edited and introduced in 2004 by City University of New York professor Mary Ann Caws. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Jolas [Feb 2005]

2005, Feb 24; 12:24 ::: Phinnweb

DJ pHinn beatmatching --http://www.xs4all.nl/~lrvk/lejo/dj.html [Feb 2005]
via http://phinnweb.blogspot.com/ [Feb 2005]
Phinnweb is Erkki Rautio of Tampere, Finland; also known as pHinn, a record collector, sometimes DJ, freelance writer, Webmaster etc., who's interested in culture equally in all its forms. Similar in style to jahsonic.com in its ecleticism and taste in high and low culture. --http://www.phinnweb.org/FAQ/index2.html [Feb 2005]
main URL: http://www.phinnweb.org/enter.html [Feb 2005]
4,050 pages in Google --http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.phinnweb.com&btnG=Google+Search [Feb 2005]
Fave articles at phinnweb:

http://www.phinnweb.org/313ctr0/electroclash/index3.html
http://www.phinnweb.org/313ctr0/index2.html
http://www.phinnweb.org/links/artists/ur/
http://www.phinnweb.org/livingroom/ILikeToWatch/guybourdin/
http://www.phinnweb.org/roeg/films/performance/cammell/
http://www.phinnweb.org/history/
http://www.phinnweb.org/livingroom/ILikeToWatch/index2.html
http://www.phinnweb.org/links/cinema/camp/

2005, Feb 24; 11:13 ::: Things to Come (1936) - William Cameron Menzies

Things to Come (1936) - William Cameron Menzies
Things to Come is a 1936 science fiction film, produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies. It is loosely based on the novel The Shape of Things to Come, by H. G. Wells.
Wells had a degree of control over the project that was unprecedented for a writer, and personally supervised nearly every aspect of the film. Posters and the main title bill the film as "H. G. Wells' THINGS TO COME," with "an Alexander Korda production" appearing in smaller type.
The film is notable for its graphic depiction of strategic bombing in scenes where London is flattened by air attacks and society collapses into barbarism. In one memorable scene, a dignitary's importance is shown by the fact that he still gets to ride in an automobile-but the automobile is of necessity drawn by a horse. This echoes pre-war concerns about the threat of the bomber and the apocalyptic pronouncements of air power prophets. Wells was also an air power prophet of sorts, having described air war in Anticipations (1901) and The War in the Air (1908), to say nothing of "atomic bombs" in The World Set Free (1914).
The score, written by Arthur Bliss, was an integral part of the film. Wells originally wanted the music to be recorded in advance, and have the film constructed around the music, but this was considered too radical and the music was fitted to the film in a more conventional way. A concert suite drawn from the film has remained popular; as of 2003 there are about half-a-dozen recordings of it in print.
Christopher Frayling of the British Film Institute calls Things to Come "a landmark in cinematic design." The special effects, while crude by today's standards, are visually powerful. Particularly notable is the sequence showing the rebuilding of Anytown. For over five minutes, we watch scenes of mysterious machines performing mysterious engineering works, accompanied and in many cases synchronized to the Arthur Bliss score. It all looks so purposeful and makes such wonderful visual sense that it is fascinating to watch. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_to_Come [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 23; 23:13 ::: Ghost Dog (1999) - Jim Jarmusch

Ghost Dog (1999) - Jim Jarmusch [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai is a 1999 film directed by Jim Jarmusch. It takes place somewhere in the present day United States.
In the film Forest Whitaker plays an African American hitman working for the Mafia, called Ghost Dog, who follows the ancient code of the samurai as described in Yamamoto Tsunetomo's guide for a warrior, Hagakure.
The movie stresses the conflict between two codes of conduct, that of the (aging) mobsters (incapable of paying the rent of their meeting place) and the one of the samurai, chosen by Ghost Dog. However, it also mentions that both tribes of honor are dying out. There is a certain sense of inevitability in the movie, and also of honor, portrayed by Ghost Dog killing two hunters he encounters on the road with a dead bear, outside the hunting season.
Between the acts a quotation from Hagakure is screened and read by Ghost Dog.
The soundtrack was written and produced by the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA, who also has a small role in the film. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dog_-_The_Way_of_the_Samurai [Feb 2005]
Jim Jarmusch (born January 22, 1953 in Akron, Ohio, USA) is a noted film director. Following years of artistic success and critical acclaim in the American independent film community, he achieved a new level of mainstream notoriety with his far-East philosophy-themed Western movie set in New Jersey, Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai, starring Forest Whitaker, which also featured a soundtrack by the Wu-Tang Clan's Rza. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jarmusch [Feb 2005]
Filmography as director
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), includes the 1986 Coffee and Cigarettes, Somewhere in California, Memphis Version as segments - Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet (2002) (segment "Int. Trailer Night") - Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai (1999) - Year of the Horse (1997) - Dead Man (1995) - Coffee and Cigarettes - Somewhere in California (1993) - Night on Earth (1991) - Coffee and Cigarettes - Memphis Version (1989) - Mystery Train (1989) - Coffee and Cigarettes (1986) - Down by Law (1986) - Stranger Than Paradise (1983) - The New World (1982) - Permanent Vacation (1980) --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jarmusch [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 23; 20:43 ::: Coffret Leroux Gaston 2vols - Gaston Leroux

Coffret Leroux Gaston 2vols - Gaston Leroux [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Gaston Leroux (May 6, 1868, Paris - April 15, 1927, Nice) was a French journalist and novelist.
In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'opéra, 1911) which has been made into several film and stage productions (see Phantom of the Opera).
Leroux began working as a court reporter and theater critic for L'Echo de Paris in 1890, but his most important journalism came when he began working as an international correspondent for the Paris newspaper Le Matin. In 1905 he was present at and covered the Russian Revolution. He left journalism in 1907 and began writing fiction, his first being a mystery novel entitled Le Mystère de la chambre jaune (1908; The Mystery of the Yellow Room), starring the amateur detective Joseph Rouletabille. The Mystery of the Yellow Room is an important work in the history of dectective fiction as it was the first "locked-room puzzle," which has become a staple in the genre. Leroux's contribution to French detective fiction is considered as parallel to Edgar Allan Poe's in America and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's in the UK.
He died of uraemia. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaston_Leroux
2005, Feb 23; 19:18 ::: Phantom of the opera

Phantom of the opera - illustration (1910, detail) by André Castaigne

Phantom of the opera (1910) - illustration by André Castaigne
André Castiagne was the first artist to illustrate a story about the Phantom of the Opera. His five watercolors graced the pages of Gaston Leroux's 1910 work Le Fantôme de l'Opéra when the LaFitte House in Paris published it for the first time in book form. The following year (1911), the novel appeared in both an American (Bobbs-Merrill) and a British (Mills and Boon) edition, both translated to English by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. Unfortunately, only the American edition retained the interior artwork. Castaigne's Phantom paintings were not seen again until 1987 when Michael O'Mara Books Limited (Queen Ann Street, London W1N 9FB, UK) chose to include the five color plates in a new English-language edition of Leroux's work. Finally, the most recent edition to include these plates (at the time of this article's original publication) is the 1988 Phantom reprinted by The Mysterious Press (129 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019, USA). --http://www.phantomoftheopera.info/artpg02.htm [Feb 2005]

Film poster for Phantom of the opera (1925)
The 1925 film version of The Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney, Sr., and directed by Rupert Julian, is one of the more influential adaptations of Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, in which a disfigured phantom haunts the Paris Opera House, trying to force the people who run it to make the woman he loves a star. It contained several scenes in two strip color, and is especially famous for Lon Chaney's intentionally horrific, self-applied makeup which was kept a studio secret until the film's premier. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_of_the_Opera_(1925_movie) [Feb 2005]

Phantom of the opera - The title character as depicted by Lon Chaney, Sr. in the 1925 film depiction, the most famous adaptation prior to the musical version. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera [Feb 2005]

Phantom of the opera -
Cover of the 1959 Brodard et Taupin reissue of Leroux's novel in the original French (498 pages). This version is currently available for purchase from [Amazon.fr]. --image and text sourced from http://www.phantomoftheopera.info/essay019.htm [Feb 2005]

Phantom of the opera -
Cover of the first 1910 edition of Gaston Leroux's Phantom by the French publishing house Lafitte, Paris -very rare. --image and text sourced from http://www.phantomoftheopera.info/essay019.htm [Feb 2005]
The Phantom of the Opera is a story about a mysterious figure which haunts the Opera House of Paris, writen by Gaston Leroux and adapted to a successful musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom [Feb 2005]
The Phantom of the Opera is a novel by Gaston Leroux, inspired by George du Maurier's Trilby. Published in 1910, and first translated into English in 1911, it has since been adapted many times into film and stage productions.
The story is about a mysterious figure who terrorizes the Paris Opera House for the unwitting benefit of a young singer he loves. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera [Feb 2005]

The Phantom of the Opera (1925) - Rupert Julian [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Inspired by Jean Rollin, Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin
2005, Feb 23; 14:53 ::: Les Mystères de Paris (10 vols., 1842-1843) - Eugène Sue

Les Mystères de Paris (10 vols., 1842-1843) - Eugène Sue
Eugène Sue was strongly affected by the Socialist ideas of the day, and these prompted his most famous works: Les Mystères de Paris (10 vols., 1842-1843) and Le Juif errant (translated, ""The Wandering Jew"") (10 vols., 1844-1845), which were among the most popular specimens of the roman-feuilleton. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%E8ne_Sue [Feb 2005]
Serials in fiction
Serial in fiction is a term used to describe any story which is told over a number of separate installments. This can be different chapters of a prose story published in each weekly issue of a magazine, a series of films with a continuing story or - in its most common contemporary form - a television production with a continuing story made up of several episodes. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial [Feb 2005]
Mid 1800s: first serials
In the mid-nineteenth century magazines publishing short stories and serials began to be popular. Some of them were more respectable, while others were referred to by the derogatory name of penny dreadfuls. In 1844 Alexandre Dumas published a novel The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires) and wrote The Count of Monte Cristo which was published in installments over the next two years. William Makepeace Thackeray published The Luck of Barry Lyndon. In Britain Charles Dickens published several of his books in installments in magazines: The Pickwick Papers, followed, in the next few years, by Oliver Twist (1837-1839), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841), Barnaby Rudge (1841), A Christmas Carol (1843) and Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844). In America a version of the penny dreadful became popularly known as a dime novel. In the dime novels the reputations of gunfighters and other wild west heroes or villains were created or exaggerated. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_literature:_Modern_literature#The_middle_of_the_century [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 22; 13:55 ::: Teo Macero and Bitches Brew (1969)

Bitches Brew (1969) - Miles Davis [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Teo Macero is a jazz saxophonist and record producer.
He began his career as a performer, recording a few albums, and briefly joining Charles Mingus.
Macero found greater fame as a jazz record producer for Columbia Records. He had a long and especially fruitful partnership with Miles Davis.
Recently, Macero returned to performing, playing saxophone on DJ Logic's Project Logic. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teo_Macero [Feb 2005]
Bitches Brew and post-production
Some might argue Teo Macero deserves much of the credit for Bitches Brew. His contributions were sometimes controversial, certainly important, and perhaps invaluable.
There was significant editing done to the recorded music. Short sections were spliced together to create longer pieces, and various effects were applied to the recordings. One source worth quoting at length reports:
"Bitches Brew also pioneered the application of the studio as a musical instrument, featuring stacks of edits and studio effects that were an integral part of the music. Even though it sounded like an old-style studio registration of a bunch of guys playing some amazing stuff, large sections of it relied heavily on studio technology to create a fantasy that never was. Miles and his producer, the legendary Teo Macero, used the recording studio in radical new ways, especially in the title track and the opening track, "Pharaoh's Dance". There were many special effects, like tape loops, tape delays, reverb chambers and echo effects. And, through intensive tape editing, Macero concocted many totally new musical structures that were later imitated by the band in live concerts. Macero, who has a classical education and was most likely inspired by the '30s and '40s musique concrete experiments, used tape editing as a form of arranging and composition. "Pharaoh's Dance" contains 19 edits - its famous stop-start opening is entirely constructed in the studio, using repeat loops of certain sections. Later on in the track there are several micro-edits: for example, a one-second-long fragment that first appears at 8:39 is repeated five times between 8:54 and 8:59. The title track contains 15 edits, again with several short tape loops of, in this case, five seconds (at 3:01, 3:07 and 3:12). Therefore, Bitches Brew not only became a controversial classic of musical innovation, it also became renowned for its pioneering use of studio technology." [3] (http://www.audiomedia.com/archive/features/uk-0599/uk-0599-brew/uk-0599-brew.htm)
This extensive editing was sometimes controversial in jazz circles as purists and detractors argued that jazz should be "spontaneous." But decades earlier trumpeter Louis Armstrong had quickly perceived the photographic nature of the audio recording, becoming the first musician to assemble a band solely for the purpose of recording it live in the studio. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitches_Brew#Post-production [Feb 2005]
Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of movies, video games, music, or other media.
In motion picture and television production, a sound effect is a sound recorded and presented to make a specific storytelling or creative point without the use of dialogue or music. The term often refers to a process applied to a recording, without necessarily referring to the recording itself. In professional motion picture and television production, the segregations between dialogue, music, and sound effects recordings are quite severe, and it is important to understand that in such contexts dialogue and music recordings are never referred to as sound effects, though the processes applied to them, such as reverberation or flanging, often are. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_effect [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 22; 10:35 ::: Haruki Murakami

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994-1995) - Haruki Murakami [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Murakami Haruki is one of the most popular and controversial of today's Japanese authors. His genre-defying, humorous and fantastic works have sparked fierce debates in Japan over whether they are true "literature" or simple pop-fiction: Oe Kenzaburo has been one of his harshest critics. However, Western critics are nearly unanimous in assessing Murakami's works as having serious literary value. Some of his most well-known works include Norwegian Wood (1987) and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994-1995). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_literature [Feb 2005]
Haruki Murakami, born January 12, 1949) is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami [Feb 2004]
Murakami's fiction, which is often criticised for being "pop" literature by Japan's literary establishment, is humorous and surreal, and at the same time reflects an essential alienation, loneliness and longing for love in a way that has touched readers in the US and Europe, as well as in East Asia. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami [Feb 2004]
thanks to Mr. Seeldraeyers
2005, Feb 21; 21:18 ::: Multimedia

Multimedia is the use of several different media to convey information (text, audio, graphics, animation, video, and interactivity). Multimedia also refers to computer media. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 21; 20:55 ::: Technique index

adaptation - collage - cut-up - edit - film edit - film technique - instrument - medium - mix - montage - painting - photomontage - remix - recording - sample - version - writing -

2005, Feb 21; 20:55 ::: My Nightingale Is Singing (1984) - Astrid Lindgren

My Nightingale Is Singing (1984) - Astrid Lindgren [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Astrid Lindgren (November 14, 1907 - January 28, 2002) was a Swedish children's book author, whose many titles were translated into over 70 languages and published in more than 100 countries.
Astrid Lindgren grew up in Smalandia in Sweden. Many of her books are based on her family and her childhood on a little farm. Pippi Longstocking, her most famous book, was originally invented for her bed-ridden daughter, Karin. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrid_Lindgren [Feb 2005]
Warning for puffy eyes!, April 18, 2003
Reviewer: Katarina Hjärpe (Lund, Sweden)
"My Nightingale is Singing" is a rare gem by Astrid Lindgren. Not one of her more famous books (even among her short stories, which never made it as big as her novels), it is nevertheless one of her most beautiful ones. When I feel like I need a good cry, this is a book that always does the trick.
Malin - Maria in the English translation - is a girl whose parents have died of tuberculosis, and she's forced to live in the poor house, where nothing is fun or beautiful. Malin can hardly stand it, until she hears the words: "My linden plays, my nightingale is singing..." --via Amazon.com
2005, Feb 20; 11:37 ::: Paul Laurenzi

Paul Laurenzi, image sourced from http://www.eroticartmuseum.de/gallerien/paullaurenzi/laurenzi_gallerie_2.html [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 20; 11:37 ::: Another friendly comment

screen shot
Think of the biggest pop culture nerd you know creating a Web site and you will have an idea of what jahsonic.com is about. Jahsonic has everything from a historical "gay timeline" beginning in the 1700s to a review of new CDs in categories such as "white music" and "Italo Disco." If you are in any sort of Cultural Anthropology class, or into "Disco Hedonism," this is your site. Check out the blog for weekly favorites. --http://www.jupiterindex.com/_issue/sites.html [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 20; 09:35 ::: Thanks for the link, Nova!
L’histoire moderne de la musique (soul, disco, house, reggae, jazz, funk, dub, rap and hip hop, garage, techno…), mais aussi celles d’autres segments de la culture comme le cinéma, l’art, le design, les mœurs, etc. Un site de ouf plein de ressources, mais en anglais ! -- http://www.novaplanet.com/cyber-hardcore/liens-fondamentaux,12,d,2,musique-actu.html [Feb 2005]
See also: Radio Nova
2005, Feb 19; 23:42 ::: An index of horror [...]

Saturn Devouring His Son (1819)

Media: horror film - horror fiction
Genres: bio horror - body horror - erotic horror - exploitation - fantastic - freaks of nature - gore - gothic - magic - monster - psychological horror - slasher - snuff film - vampire - video nasty - werewolf - zombie
Connotations: bizarre - blood - controversial - cruelty - dark - demon - devil - disgusting - disturbing - evil - fantasy - fear - grotesque - inquisition - midnight - night - offensive - pain - phobia - prison - repugnance - shocking - sadism - sick - strange - supernatural - surreal - terror - torture - ugly - violence - visceral
By region: American Horror - European horror - Japanese horror

2005, Feb 19; 22:26 ::: Day and night themes

day - night
2005, Feb 19; 20:45 ::: Galeries St. Hubert (1846), Brussels

Galeries St. Hubert (1846), Brussels
In 1846 King Leopold I laid the first stone for the construction of the royal galleries Saint-Hubert in Brussels, designed by architect J. P. Cluysenaer as an enclosed shopping environment with a glass and metal roof. Although other enclosed galleries had been built in Europe, St. Hubert would be the oldest covered gallery to survive to the present day. --http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/soc/shoppingcenter2.html [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 19; 20:18 ::: Juxtaposition

Generally, juxtaposition, or contrasting is an act or instance of placing two things close together or side by side, in order to show unlikeness or differences, to note the opposite qualities of the two, etc.
In music it is an abrupt change of elements.
In film the position of shots next to one another is intended to create meaning within the audiences mind.
In literature it occurs when two images that are otherwise not commonly brought together appear side by side or structural close together - thereby creating the reader to stop and reconsider the meaning of the text through the contrasting images/ideas/motifs.
Modernist poetry played extensivley with juxtaposing images, inserting unrelated fragments together in order to create wonder and interest in readers. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juxtaposition [Feb 2004]

Walter Benjamin, writing in the 1920's and 30's, used the Paris Arcades, as the focal point of a study of 19th century Paris. He constructed The Arcades Project by mixing many citations of other authors with his own comments, generating understanding as much by the content of a particular bit as its juxtaposition with other texts. For example, advertising copy might appear right before a citation from Frederick Engels. The quotes functioned as a bit of newspaper collaged onto a painting to provide concrete evidence from the past. Benjamin used montage and fragmentation as a new way to understand and write history.
-- e-Arcades by Robin Michals via http://molodiez.org/dms420/samples.htm [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 19; 18:01 ::: Walter Benjamin on Céline

There is a remark by Benjamin on Céline in the Arcades Project (p. 300) -‘Gauloiserie in Baudelaire: “To organise a grand conspiracy for the extermination of the Jewish race./ The Jews who are librarians and bear witness to the Redemption”… Céline has continued along these lines. (cheerful assassins!)’

In a letter to Max Horkheimer on April 16, 1938, Benjamin wrote, ‘You may have seen Gide’s dispute with Céline… “If one were forced to see in Bagatelles pour un massacre anything other than a game, it would be impossible to excuse Céline, in spite of all his genius, for stirring up banal passions with such cynicism and frivolous impertinence”… The word banal speaks for itself. As you will recall, I was also struck by Céline’s lack of seriousness. Gide, being the moralist he is, otherwise pays heed only to the book’s intent and not to its consequences. Or, being the Satanist he also is, has he no objections to them?’ (Correspondence, p. 558)

Benjamin describes Céline as a popular novelist (Roman populiste). This form ‘represents not so much an advance for the proletarian novel as a retreat on the part of bourgeois aesthetics… It is no accident that … Journey To The End Of The Night … is concerned with the Lumpenproletariat. Like the Lumpenproletariat, Céline, in his description of it, is quite unable to make visible this defect in his subject. Hence, the monotony in which the plot is veiled is fundamentally ambiguous. He succeeds in vividly portraying the sadness and sterility of a life … But he is quite incapable of showing us the forces that have shaped the lives of these outcasts. Even less is he able to convey how these people might begin to react against these forces. This is why nothing can be more treacherous than the judgment on Céline’s book delivered by Dabit, who is himself a respected representative of the genre. “We are confronted here with a work in which revolt does not proceed from aesthetic or symbolic discussions, and in which what is at issue is not art, culture, or God, but a cry of rage against the conditions of life that human beings can impose on a majority of other human beings.” Bardamu - this is the name of the hero of the novel - “is made of the same stuff as the masses. He is made from their cowardice, their panic-stricken horror, their desires, and their outbursts of violence.” So far so good were it not for the fact that the essence of revolutionary training and experience is to recognise the class structure of the masses and to exploit it.’ (Benjamin Selected Writings, 2, p. 752.) --http://sauer-thompson.com/conversations/archives/001543.html [Feb 2005]

2005, Feb 18; 19:14 ::: Arcades Project (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin

The Arcades Project (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
'World exhibitions were places of pilgrimage to the fetish commodity'. --Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project
If the commodity was a fetish, then Grandville was the tribal sorcerer. --Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project (1927 - 1940)
The files comprised a vast array of interlinked scraps. When Benjamin fled Paris he gave over his collected notes of the Arcades Project to Georges Bataille, librarian at the National Library in Paris. He hid them well. He might have hoped to return one day to complete his researches. But completion was itself an issue. Gretel Adorno once joked that Benjamin inhabited the ‘cavelike depths’ of the Arcades Project and did not want to complete it ‘because you feared having to leave what you built’. --Esther Leslie via http://www.militantesthetix.co.uk/yarcades.html [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 18; 16:25 ::: Commonplace

Commonplace: a historical precedent for the weblog
During the Renaissance (especially in England), commonplaces (or commonplace books) were for some people a popular way to compile knowledge, usually done by writing information into books. During the height of their prolificacy, commonplaces were used by readers, writers, students, and humanists as an aid for remembering useful concepts or facts they had learned.
Producing a commonplace is frequently known as commonplacing. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonplace [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 18; 16:21 ::: Genre [...]

Keywords: content - convention - form - format - media - motif - mood - originality - setting - style - subject - theme - topic
Media: film genre - literary genre - music genre
Mood: comedy - horror
Setting: science fiction - western

2005, Feb 18; 13:42 ::: Buttocks [...]

Hot Cheeks (2004) Martin Sigrist [Amazon US] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Exposed - Trevor Watson (Photographer), Tony Mitchell [Amazon US] [FR] [DE] [UK]
2005, Feb 18; 12:46 ::: A Child Is Being Beaten - (1919) - Sigmund Freud

A Child Is Being Beaten - (1919) - Sigmund Freud [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
From Book News, Inc.
The fifth volume in the series presents a classic essay by Freud followed by discussions that set Freud's work in context and demonstrate its contemporary relevance. "A Child Is Being Beaten" (1919) deals with the childhood beating fantasy (which is often accompanied by sexual arousal), and the theoretical problem of how pleasure and suffering become linked. Contributors represent diverse perspectives as well as diverse regions of the psychoanalytic world. Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR
Product Description:
This is the fifth volume in the series "Contemporary Freud: Turning Points and Critical Issues," co-published with the International Psychoanalytical Association. This book, like the others in the series, presents a classic essay by Freud, followed by discussions that set Freud`s work in context and demonstrate its contemporary relevance. "A Child Is Being Beaten" (1919) deals with the theoretical problem of how pleasure and suffering become linked. --via Amazon.com
2005, Feb 18; 12:20 ::: Art for art's sake

"Art for art's sake" is the usual English rendition of a French slogan, ''l'art pour l'art'', which is credited to Théophile Gautier.
Whether Gautier was the first to write those words, he was the first to adopt them as a slogan. "Art for art's sake" was a bohemian creed in the nineteenth century, a slogan raised in defiance of those who - from John Ruskin to the much later Communist advocates of socialist realism - thought that the value of art was to serve some moral or didactic purpose. Art for art's sake affirmed that art was valuable as art, that artistic pursuits were their own justification, and that art did not need moral justification - and indeed, was allowed to be morally subversive.
The slogan is associated in the history of English art and letters with Walter Pater, and his followers in the Aesthetic Movement, which was self-consciously in rebellion against Victorian moralism.
The Latin version of the slogan, "ars gratia artis", is used as a slogan by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and appears in the oval around the roaring lion's head in their motion picture logo. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_for_art%27s_sake [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 18; 11:16 ::: Push, Push In The Bush (1978) - Musique

Logo of the Prelude record label

In the bush (1978) is the A-side of this twelve inch
In the Summer of 1977, I remember being on the highway and hearing "Shake Your Booty" for the first time. I turned to my girlfriend and said,
"I don't believe they got away with that!" Here we were way past the dawning of the aquarian age and Woodstock and free love, yet it seemed that a big taboo was being broken. The 'line' had been crossed. We songwriters still believed that suggestive lyric but not explicit lyric was the order of the day. We spent endless hours crafting new ways of eluding to sex without crossing that magic line. Suddenly the pressure was on to test for a new 'magic line.' Between "Deep Throat" in the cinema and George Carlins' "Seven words you can't say on television" the world was ready for the test.
I did not sit down and invent the phrase "Push Push In The Bush" in a moment of meditative genius. I was in the recording studio ... --http://www.papmus.com/push.html [Feb 2005]
see also http://www.discogs.com/release/225320, Prelude records, Patrick Adams, disco, Musique, http://www.discocity.it/afrofunkydisco_rarita20.htm [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 18; 10:50 ::: Degeneration (1892) - Max Simon Nordau

Degeneration (1892) - Max Simon Nordau [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Max Nordau (July 29, 1849 - January 23, 1923), born Simon Maximilian Südfeld in Pest, Hungary, was a Zionist leader, physician, author, and social critic.
He was a co-founder of the World Zionist Organization together with Theodor Herzl, and president or vice president of several Zionist congresses.
He was also a social critic who wrote a number of controversial books, including The Conventional Lies of Our Civilisation (1883), Degeneration (1892), and Paradoxes (1896). Of these books, the one most frequently remembered is Degeneration; it was a philistine and moralistic attack on so-called degenerate art, and its arguments were adopted by the antisemitic Nazi Party in Germany.
Nordau died in Paris, France in 1923. In 1926 his remains were moved to Tel Aviv. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Nordau [Feb 2004]
2005, Feb 17; 17:29 ::: Ecorché I (1939-1940) - Ferdinand Springer

Ecorché I (1939-1940) - Ferdinand Springer
2005, Feb 17; 15:44 ::: Mandarijnen op Zwavelzuur (1963) Willem Frederik Hermans

cover image from Mandarijnen op Zwavelzuur (1963)
image sourced from http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/smul003kuns01/smul003kuns01_001.htm [Feb 2005]
His [W.F. Hermans] polemic and provocative style led to a court case as early as 1952. His caustic pieces were compiled in Mandarijnen op zwavelzuur (‘Mandarines in Sulphuric Acid’, 1963), which was reprinted with additions a number of times. It is Herman’s belief that in order to survive people have to create own reality. It is inevitable that all these experiences of reality will collide. Language is essential to create order out of chaos and plays an important role in this process. --http://www.nlpvf.nl/Book/NLPVF_BooktxtDB.php?Book=276
Mandarijnen op zwavelzuur verscheen in 1963. Dat herinner ik mij nog heel goed, want in dat jaar zat ik voor mijn eindexamen. Ik las de verschrikte recensies en één ding wist ik zeker: dat boek moest ik hebben.
Het bleek echter helemaal niet zo gemakkelijk de Mandarijnen te pakken te krijgen. Boekhandelaren raadpleegden dikke uitgeversgidsen om vervolgens het hoofd te schudden.
Mijn vader, die getuige was van mijn wanhopige pogingen om het boek te bemachtigen, nam met het oog op de naderende sinterklaasavond een besluit. Hij belde Hermans, die ergens in Groningen scheen te wonen. Hermans noteerde de naam van mijn vader op een lijstje en zei dat het boek zou worden verzonden zodra het geld was overgemaakt. Ik herinner mij nog dat mijn vader zei: 'Vreemd, zou die Hermans een eigen boekwinkeltje hebben?'
Inderdaad lag de Mandarijnen enige tijd daarop in de bus. Bijgevoegd was een collage, door de auteur zelf in elkaar geknipt en geplakt, waarop een vrouw te zien was van wie het hoofd bedekt was door de hoorn van een ouderwetse grammofoon. Wat de bedoeling van deze voorstelling was heb ik eigenlijk nooit zo precies begrepen, maar de collage heb ik nog steeds. Onder antiquairs schijnt hij tegenwoordig voor vele honderden guldens verhandeld te worden. --http://www.maxpam.nl/archief/InterviewHermans1.html [Feb 2005]
W.F. Hermans and collage

Het Hoedenparadijs (1991) - Willem Frederik Hermans
2005, Feb 17; 15:01 ::: De boekenpoeper: Het groteske in de literatuur (1982) - Maarten van Buuren
I am looking for De boekenpoeper: Het groteske in de literatuur (1982) - Maarten van Buuren
2005, Feb 17; 15:01 ::: Roman Cieslewicz (1930-1996)

Illustration by Roman Cieslewicz, date unidentified
Roman Cieslewicz (1930-1996).
1949-54 studied at Cracow Academy of Fine Arts. Specialized in poster and display designing. Worked as book and magazine designer.
Since 1962 lived in France where he worked as art director of "Vogue", "Elle" and "Mafia" - advertising agency. He was artistic creator of "Opus International" and "Kitsch". Member of AGI [International Graphic Association]. --http://www.poster.com.pl/cieslewicz.htm [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 17; 12:12 ::: The Marquis De Sade: A New Biography (1992) - Donald Thomas

The Marquis De Sade: A New Biography (1992) - Donald Thomas [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Product Description:
Donatien-Alphonse-Francois, Marquis de Sade 1740-1814, remains a man whose name is instantly recognized but whose life is obscure. Born close to royalty in the age of aristocratic decadence, he precipitated sexual scandals in the grand manner. Alleged poisoning and unnatural practices with a group of girls in Marseilles earned him a death sentence. While hunted by the law he contrived a winter of pleasures that led to further accusations of sexual crimes.
Imprisoned on six separate occasions, De Sade spent twenty seven years under detention, escaping the guillotine while within sight of it. and spending his last years in the dubious comfort of the asylum of Charenton. For a brief period after the revolution De Sade also became a judge, opposed the death penalty, and saved some of his sworn enemies from prison or execution. He was loved to the end by women who knew the worst of him, and he was fearless in his defiance of injustice.
What manner of paradox was this man? Was he a monster or was he a man of his time, driven to excess and persecuted by his contemporaries? De Sade, an aristocrat, lived through the waning days of Louis XVI, the Revolution, the Terror and the early years of Napoleon's reign. His literary. output fills a library shelf, and even now a English-language edition of his complete writings is in the planning stages.
In this illuminating and dramatic biography, Donald Thomas puts De Sade in perspective, unraveling his complex life and thought against the turbulent background of revolutionary France and considers his legacy in the context of our own time. What manner of man could have written Juliet, Justine and 120 Days of Sodom? This book offers a key. --Amazon.com
Notes to self on this book:
Janin, Jules: Le marquis de Sade In: Revue de Paris, 1834. --http://www.cab.u-szeged.hu/local/gondolatjel/93/bibl.html [Feb 2005]
Geoffrey Wall (auteur de Flaubert: A Life, Faber 2001) serait reconnaissant à celle ou à celui qui pourrait lui donner des informations concernant l'article de Jules Janin sur le marquis de Sade, publié dans la Revue de Paris en novembre 1834. (Nous savons que Flaubert a découvert Sade en 1839 par Janin.) --http://www.univ-rouen.fr/flaubert/14bullet/bulle60.htm [Feb 2005]
and in 1843 famed Critic Sainte-Beuve wrote that Byron and Sade "are perhaps the two greatest inspirations of our moderns." --http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,867495,00.html [Feb 2005]
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (December 23, 1804 - October 13, 1869) was a literary critic and one of the major figures of French literary history.
He was born in Boulogne, and studied at the College Charlemagne in Paris. He became friendly with Victor Hugo after publishing a favourable review of the author's work, and had an affair with Hugo's wife. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Augustin_Sainte-Beuve [Feb 2005]
Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin: Quelques vérités sur la situation en littérature in Revue des Deux Mondes, luglio 1843. Vol. III°, Pp. 5-20. --http://marchese-desade.org/articoli/articolistu.htm [Feb 2005]
Du Deffand, Marie-Anne de Vichy-Chamrond marquise: letters of 12-4-1768 and 13-4-1768 in Lettres de la marquise du Deffand à Horace Walpole, Paris: 1812.
Letters written by marquise Du Deffand to Horace Walpole tell the story of Rose Keller.
Published in the 1920s in Victorian England, Havelock Ellis’s case-study "Florrie," narrates the life of a suffragette who pursued feminism in public life and begged for chastisement and confinement in private life. Ellis as an early emancipated psycho-analyst taught Florrie how to accept her fantasies and gradually encouraged her to have her first orgasm through flagellation. --http://pages.emerson.edu/faculty/Katrien_Jacobs/articles/masochism/masochism.html [Feb 2004]
On Thursday May 19, 1977, 20-year-old Carol Smith (not her real name) left Eugene, Oregon to visit a friend in the Northern California town of Westwood, almost 400 miles away She had no car or money for a bus, but she was used to getting around with her thumb, so she hitchhiked. --http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/sex_slave/index.html?sect=19 [Feb 2005]
The case of Neville George Clevely Heath was one of a series of famous post-1945 murder cases that occurred in the UK. --http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/neville_heath.htm [Feb 2005]
Thaw was a cocaine addict, or at least showed signs of drug abuse which caused him to have a wild-eyed stare most of the time. His drug abuse also seems to have fueled in him a kind of sadism that he took out mostly on women -- beating them with dog whips (as he did to Evelyn) and scalding them with boiling water in hotel bathtubs. --http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/century/sfeature/sf_interview.html [Feb 2005]
Myra Hindley (July 23, 1942-November 15, 2002), known as the "Moors Murderess", was born in Crumpshall in the English city of Manchester. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myra_Hindley [Feb 2005]
At the office Christmas party, Brady, relaxed by a few drinks, asked Hindley for their first date. It was to be the beginning of her initiation into his secret world. That first night he took her to see The Nuremberg Trials. As the weeks went by, he played her records of Hitler's marching songs and encouraged her to read some of his favourite books - Mein Kampf, and Crime and Punishment, and de Sade's works [actually, two works: The Life and Ideas of the Marquis De Sade (1934) by Geoffrey Gorer and a heavily expurgated version of Justine, for sale over the counter at W.H. Smith] --http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/moors/feather_4.html?sect=2 [Feb 2005]
In addition, readers should look at Heine's important scholarship: Maurice Heine. Le Marquis de Sade. Edited by Gilbert Lely. Paris, 1950. --http://neilschaeffer.com/sade/bibliography/ [Feb 2005]
On returning to England, he [Swinburne] met Richard Monckton Milnes, who introduced him to Richard Burton and (in 1862) to the works of the Marquis de Sade. Though Swinburne laughed at Sade's literary style, he was evidently liberated by finding that it was possible to write explicitly about the connections between pain and pleasure. Swinburne's poetry at this point becomes more daring and confident; but it also becomes more deeply informed by grief, love, loss and anger. --http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5111 [Feb 2005]
Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton (June 19, 1809 - August 11, 1885) was an English poet and politician. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Monckton_Milnes%2C_1st_Baron_Houghton [Feb 2005]
[H]ankey also supplies sado-masochistic erotica to Swinburne, Richard Burton and Richard Monckton Milnes. --http://www.eroticabibliophile.com/people19.html [Sept 2004]
The brothels of 1875 - - Mary Jeffries ran the most exclusive brothel in the Victorian Era. Her chief assistant was a Mrs. Travers. She kidnapped children by offering to watch them while the parents went to gather luggage or buy tickets. Jeifries catered to nobility. "There was no form of sexual vice for which this murderess did not cater" (Terrot, 1960, p.91). Stead (Tenot, 1960, p.54), writing for the Pall Mall Gazette, described one of her houses,
"Flogging or birching goes on in brothels to a much greater degree than is generally believed. One of Mrs. Jeffrles' rooms was fitted up like a torture chamber... There were rings in the ceiling for hanging women and children up by the wrists, ladders for strapping them down at any angle, as well as the ordinary stretcher to which the victim is fastened so as to be unable to move. The instruments of flagellation included the ordinary birch, whips, holly branches and wire-thonged cat-o'-nine-tails."

Every once in a while the plight of child prostitutes catches and mo-mentarily holds the public awareness and consciousness. The Victorians were captured by reporters like Stead (Rush, 1980), and books such as Trafficking in Young Girls or War on the White Slave Trade (Sims, 1910) and Traffic in Girls and Florence Crittenton Missions (Edholm, 1893). Ennew 1986) pointed out that during the Victorian era the upswell of public sentiment/awareness for the sexual plight of children, coexisting with their exploitation, supports the contention that the present level of con-cern and activity regarding child prostitution is not unprecedented. However, left unsaid about these waves of consciousness is the entire ocean of blame for the victim surging behind it. --http://home.pacbell.net/tonyprey/burning/ [Feb 2005]

Portrait imaginaire de Sade (1938) - Man Ray

The cover on the Dutch translation of The Marquis De Sade: A New Biography (1992) published by Bert Bakker has this Roman Cieslewicz illustration of Sade
2005, Feb 17; 01:27 ::: Frank R. Paul

City of the future (1942) - Frank R. Paul
Frank Rudolph Paul (1884 - 1963) was an Austrian-born illustrator of US pulp-magazines in the science fiction field. A discovery of Hugo Gernsback (himself an immigrant from Luxemburg), Frank R. Paul was very influential in defining what both cover art and interior illustrations in the nascent science fiction pulps of the 1920s looked like. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_R._Paul [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 16; 13:12 ::: Neoclassicism

Late Baroque classicizing: G. P. Pannini assembles the canon of Roman ruins and Roman sculpture into one vast imaginary gallery (1756)
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture. These movements were in effect at various times between the 18th and the 20th centuries. What could these "neoclassicisms" have in common? Late Baroque classicizing: G. P. Pannini assembles the canon of Roman ruins and Roman sculpture into one vast imaginary gallery (1756)
What any "neo"-classicism depends on most fundamentally is a consensus about a body of work that has achieved canonic status (illustration, above). These are the "classics." Ideally- and neoclassicism is essentially an art of an ideal- an artist, well-schooled and comfortably familiar with the canon, does not repeat it in lifeless reproductions, but synthesizes the tradition anew in each work. This sets a high standard, clearly; but though a neoclassical artist who fails to achieve it may create works that are inane, vacuous or even mediocre, gaffes of taste and failures of craftsmanship are not commonly neoclassical failings. Novelty, improvisation, self-expression, and blinding inspiration are not neoclassical virtues; neoclassicism exhibits perfect control of an idiom. It does not recreate art forms from the ground up with each new project, as modernism demanded. "Make it new" was the modernist credo of the poet Ezra Pound. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassicism [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 16; 13:12 ::: De Roma instaurata (Rome Restored) (1444-1446) Biondo Flavio

De Roma instaurata (Rome Restored) (1444-1446) Biondo Flavio [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Product Description:
Biondo Flavio (1392?1463), humanist and historian, was a pioneering figure in the Renaissance recovery of classical antiquity. While serving a number of the Renaissance popes, he inaugurated an extraordinary program of research into the history, institutions, cultural life, and physical remains of the ancient Roman empire. The Italia Illustrata (1453), which appears here for the first time in English, is a topographical work describing Italy region by region. Its aim is to explore the Roman roots of the Renaissance world. As such, it is the quintessential work of Renaissance antiquarianism. This is the first edition of the Latin text since 1559. --Amazon.com
Flavio's first work was De Roma instaurata (Rome Restored, 3 vol, 1444-1446) a reconstruction of ancient Roman topography. It was and remains a highly influential humanist vision of restoring Rome to its previous heights of grandeur by recreating what Rome used to look like based on the ruins which remained. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavio_Biondo [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 16; 13:12 ::: Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 - 1778)

The Prisons (Le Carceri) () - Giovanni Battista Piranesi [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Product Description:
Full reproduction of Carceri: 30 etchings depict rickety catwalks, iron rings, faceless humans, innumerable staircases, immense vaults, projecting beams, pulleys, wooden ladders, hanging ropes and chains, iron rings imbedded in walls, faceless humans and more. All create a system of visual frustration beyond ordinary perception and understanding.
Ever since they were published - the first edition in the late 1740s, the second, even darker one in 1761 - Piranesi's monstrous images of prisons as cruelly proliferating mega-cities have inspired designers, writers and architects. As early as 1760 a spectacular set for Rameau's opera Dardanus copied one of Piranesi's boundless prison spaces. It was the beginning of a blackly glittering stage and film career for Piranesi's images, from Metropolis and Blade Runner to the moving staircases at Hogwarts. In today's architecture, you see Piranesi's imagination in Tate Modern, and London Underground's Jubilee line. --Jonathan Jones, http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/feature/0,1169,931809,00.html [Nov 2002]

Piranèse, Deuxième frontispice - Le Antichità Romane, tome II

The film directors my parents worked with also read Planète; it was fashionable among the circle of friends my parents had. Square pages; about a hundred of them, printed not too small; a classy metallic bronze or green cover photo of some ancient statue on black background; and many illustrations inside: pen drawings by the most brilliant artists of the day, etchings by Renaissance masters, or else black and white photos, stylish but not snobbish. It was grand. I especially remember their enlarged details from some of the Carceri series by Piranesi (1720-1778) ; those "prison" interiors, with their strange architecture, and more anguish and sense of vastness than what Escher did in our century in a different mode. --Esther Rochon, http://www.sfcanada.ca/communique/RochonpieceEng1.htm [Mar 2004]
Giovanni Battista (also Giambattista) Piranesi (4th October 1720 in Mogliano Veneto (near Treviso) - 9th November 1778 in Rome) was an Italian artist famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious "prisons". --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranesi [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 16; 13:12 ::: The Grotesque (1972) - Philip John Thomson

The Grotesque (1972) - Philip John Thomson [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
An index of the grotesque by
Abnormality - Absurd, The - Adamov, Arthur - Aggressiveness and Alienation - Aristophanes - - Bagehot, Walter - Bakhtin, Mikhail - Barth, John - - Beckett, Samuel - Bellerive - Benn, Gottfried - Bergson, Henri - Bizarre, The - Blake, William - Bosch, Hieronymus - Brecht, Bertolt - Browning, Robert - Brueghel, Pieter - Callot, Jacques - Camus, Albert - Canetti, Elias - Caricature - Carroll, Lewis - Chesterton, G. K. - Clayborough, Arthur - Cleveland, John - Coleridge, Samuel Taylor - Comic, The - Comic and the Terrifying, The - Cramer, Thomas - Curtius, Ludwig - Dali, Salvador - Dante - Daumier, Honore - Definition, A - Disharmony - Dickens, Charles - Diderot, Denis - Donleavy, J. P. - Durrenmatt, Frederich - Ernst, Max - Extravagance and Exaggeration - Faulkner, William - Fellini, Federico - Freud, Sigmund - Genet, Jean - Goya, Francisco - Grandville - Grass, Günter - Graves, Robert - Grosz, George - Heller, Joseph - Hinchcliffe, A. P. - Hoffmann, E. T. A. - Hugo, Victor - Ionesco, Eugene - Irony - Jarry, Alfred - Jean Paul - Jennings, L. B. - Kafka, Franz - Kayser, Wolfgang - Kempner, Friederike - Knight, G. WIlson - Lautreamont - Lawrence, D. H. - Lear, Edward - Lewis, C. S. - Macabre, The - Mensching, Gerhard - Morgenstern, Christian - Moser, Justus - Nabokov, Vladimir - Orton, Joe - Parody - "Playfulness" - Psychological Effect, The - Pinter, Harold - Poe, Edgar Allan - Rabelais, Francois - Raphael - Rilke, Rainer Maria - Ruskin, John - Satire - Satiric and the Playful Grotesque - Schlegel, Friedrich - Schneegans, Heinrich - Shakespeare, William - Smollett, Tobias - Steig, Michael - Sterne, Laurence - Symonds, John Addington - Swift, Jonathan - Tension and Unresolvability - Thomas, Dylan - Unintentional Grotesque, The - Vischer, F. Th. - Vitruvius - Waugh, Evelyn - Wright, Thomas
--http://mtsu32.mtsu.edu:11072/Grotesque/Major_Artists_Theorists/Theorists/Thomson/thomsonindex.html [Feb 2005]
see also grotesque
2005, Feb 15; 22:45 ::: Language index [...]

definition - context - communication - conversation - dictionary - discourse - etymology - expression - grammar - linguistics - literature - meaning - mouth - oral - proverb - saying - semantics - speech - thesaurus - tongue - term - verbal - vocabulary - writing - word

2005, Feb 15; 20:46 ::: Thesaurus [...]

"Wanting connections, we found connections - always, everywhere, and between everything. The world exploded in a whirling network of kinships, where everything pointed to everything else, everything explained everything else ..." -- From Foucault's Pendulum (ASIN/0345368754), Umberto Eco, 1988

The word thesaurus is New Latin for treasure; coined in the early 1820s. Besides its meaning as a treasury or storehouse, it more commonly means a listing of words with similar or related meanings. For example, a book of jargon for a specialized field; or more generally a list of subject headings and cross-references used in the filing and retrieval of documents. (Or indeed papers, certificates, letters, cards, records, texts, files, articles, essays and perhaps even manuscripts.)
The first example of this genre, Roget's Thesaurus, was published in 1852, having been compiled earlier, in 1805, by Peter Roget.
Although including synonyms, entries in a thesaurus should not be taken as a list of synonyms. The entries are also designed for drawing distinctions between similar words and assisting in choosing exactly the right word. Nor does a thesaurus entry define words. That work is left to the dictionary.
In Information Technology, a thesaurus represents a database or list of semantically orthogonal topical search keys. In the field of Artificial Intelligence, a thesaurus may sometimes be referred to as an ontology. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesaurus [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 15; 11:12 ::: Retiary organisation

Retiary organisation is an organizational method which needs a complex mapping or guidance system for navigation. In blood circulation, telephone networks or power distribution it means that many alternative routes are available to reach a destination passing through many nodes. To connect any two nodes needs a guide or map. In the human context each member of a network needs an address(or phone number) to find any other individual (node) in the net. In electronic devices the points in networks are also identified and accessed by unique addresses. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retiary [Feb 2005]
Retiary organization, a web or network. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy#Criticism_and_alternatives [Feb 2005]
see also hierarchy, nexus, rhizome
2005, Feb 15; 10:17 ::: Welcome to Sarajevo (1997) - Michael Winterbottom

Welcome to Sarajevo (1997) - Michael Winterbottom [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Natasha's Story (1997?) - Michael Nicholson [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
This is the heartwarming story of ITN reporter, Michael Nicholson's rescue of Natasha, a nine-year-old orphan from war-torn Sarajevo. When Michael discovered 200 children in an isolated orphanage on the outskirts of Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, he rapidly developed a bond with Natasha and, following an impulse, he smuggled her out of Bosnia by putting her name onto his passport. Natasha now lives with Michael and his family. -- amazon.co.uk
The siege of Sarajevo
The siege of Sarajevo was the longest siege in the history of modern warfare. It lasted from April 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996. It was fought between the forces of the Bosnian government, who had declared independence from Yugoslavia, and Serbian paramilitaries, who sought to secede from the newly-independent Bosnia. An estimated 12,000 people were killed and another 50,000 wounded during the siege. Reports indicate an average of approximately 329 shell impacts per day during the course of the siege, with a high of 3,777 shell impacts on July 22, 1993. The shellfire caused extensive damage to the city's structures, including civilian and cultural property. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo [Feb 2005]
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories first-hand from a war zone. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_correspondent [Feb 2005]
Yugoslav wars
The Serb-Croat conflict was greatly complicated in Bosnia by the presence of the large Muslim (Bosniak) population, which caused it to develop into a three-way conflict that was by far the bloodiest of the Yugoslav wars. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_wars [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 16; 09:25 ::: Dennis Cooper

Dennis Cooper (1953 - ) is a poet, writer and performance artist, most noted for transforming the visual/verbal aesthetic of punk into its written counterpart. His literary aspirations were explored early on and often took the form of imitations of Rimbaud, Verlaine, De Sade, and Baudelaire. He wrote poetry and stories in his early teens that explored scandalous and often extreme subjects. As a teenager, Cooper was an outsider and the leader of a group of poets, punks, stoners and writers. After high school he attended Pasadena City College and later Pitzer College where he encountered a poetry teacher who was to inspire him to pursue his writing outside of institutions of higher learning. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Cooper [Feb 2005]
The [George Miles] quintet is one of the finest works from the "Transgressive Fiction" movement, a literary genre identified in 1993 by Los Angeles Times critic Michael Silverblatt. Alongside Cooper, the movement also includes David Sedaris, Scott Heim, Gary Indiana and Kevin Killian. Visual motifs include eye-catching covers, italicized texts and undersized formats. Atlantic Monthly journalist Anne H. Soukhanov gave this apt definition of "Transgressive Fiction," which could also describe Cooper's writing:
A literary genre that graphically explores such topics as incest and other aberrant sexual practices, mutilation, the sprouting of sexual organs in various places on the human body, urban violence and violence against women, drug use, and highly dysfunctional family relationships, and that is based on the premise that knowledge is to be found at the edge of experience and that the body is the site for gaining knowledge. -- Anne H. Soukhanov. "Word Watch." The Atlantic Monthly (December 1996): 128.
--http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id848/pg1/ [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 16; 09:25 ::: Sex index

adultery - arousal - bondage - desire - erotica - fantasy - fetishism - gender - genitalia - heterosexuality - homosexuality - intercourse - love - lust - masturbation - nudity - orgasm - paraphilia - perversion - pornography - prostitution - rape - nudity - pregnancy - sadomasochism - sex film - sex manual - sex philosophy - sexual revolution - sexology - sexploitation

2005, Feb 15; 12:08 ::: Our Right to Drugs: The Case for a Free Market (1992) - Thomas Stephen Szasz

Our Right to Drugs: The Case for a Free Market (1992) - Thomas Stephen Szasz [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
From Publishers Weekly
The "war on drugs," charges Szasz, is a hypocritical moral crusade, a pretext for strengthening the state and scapegoating deviants. It is also racist, he asserts, pointing out that blacks are arrested on drug charges at a rate far out of proportion to their drug use. In a hard-hitting, controversial polemic, the well-known critic of psychiatry ( The Myth of Mental Illness ) advocates a free market in drugs, both for pharmaceutical medicines (including opiates) and for substances like heroin and marijuana. Szasz believes that state-sanctioned coercions to protect people from their own vices are futile and violate our fundamental rights. Futher, he maintains that labeling drug abuse as illness medicalizes a social problem and helps turn drug abusers into lifelong patients. In his blueprint for decriminalization, states could ground motorists whose driving ability is endangered by drug use; he also supports compulsory drug testing in occupations where a worker's impairment jeopardizes public safety. --Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc--via Amazon.com
Product Description:
"My aim" states Szasz, "is to mount a critique of our current drug laws and social policies, based on the fundamental premise that a limited government, epitomized by the U.S., lacks the political legitimacy to deprive competent adults of the right to ingest, inhale, or inject whatever substance they want. . . In summary my argument is that the constraints on the power of the federal government, laid down in the Constitution, have been eroded by a monopolistic medical profession administering a system of prescription laws that, in effect, have removed most of the drugs people want from the free market. Hence, it is futile to debate whether the War on Drugs should be escalated or de-escalated, without first coming to grips with the popular and political mindset concerning the trade in drugs generated by nearly a century of drug prohibitions."--via Amazon.com
Dr. Thomas Stephen Szasz (born April 15, 1920 in Hungary) is Professor Emeritus in Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York.
He is a prolific author and speaker, probably most well known for his books The Myth of Mental Illness and The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement which set out some of the arguments with which he is most associated.
These stem from classical liberal roots (notably the work of philosopher John Stuart Mill) which are based on the principles that each person has the right to bodily and mental self ownership and the right to be free from violence from others. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 15; 11:48 ::: Is Love a Form of Mental Illness?

“The language of Valentine's Day cards and love songs-‘crazy for you,’ ‘madly in love,’ et cetera-may reveal an important truth. Sometimes, love looks like a mental disorder, says British clinical psychologist Frank Tallis. . . . The author of ‘Love Sick: Love as a Mental Illness,’ Mr. Tallis has a private practice in London, where he says he often has patients who are suffering mentally because of love. ‘Some people are referred to me because of an admission to depression or anxiety disorder, but in fact, once we'd explored issues around their problems, it was clear they were just in love.’ . . . -- via http://theszaszblog.blogspot.com/2005/02/is-love-form-of-mental-illness.html [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 15; 11:30 ::: Drugs
Currently working on:
alcohol - cocaine - ecstasy - hashish - heroin - LSD - opium - pot - speed
drugs in film - drugs in history - drugs in literature - drugs in music
2005, Feb 15; 09:51 ::: Drug lit

The Road of Excess: A History of Writers on Drugs (2002) - Marcus Boon [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
From Library Journal
Instead of providing a chronological history of drugs in literature, Boon (English, York Univ.) offers a sprawling, extensively researched work that explores the "more subtle, micropolitical histories of everyday interactions between human beings and particular psychoactive substances." Each of the book's five chapters focuses on writers (e.g., Baudelaire, Burroughs, Coleridge, Freud, Huxley, Kerouac, and Southey) and works associated with a particular class of drugs: narcotics, anesthetics, cannabis, stimulants, and psychedelics. Boon originally intended to confine himself to writers from the Romantics to the present but expanded his scope when after questioning the apparent lack of drug literature prior to Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1822). This is an ambitious effort, but as Boon himself notes in his chapter on cannabis, readers "will notice a tendency in my writing toward digression." A tighter focus would have helped, especially since many of the anecdotes have been covered elsewhere-most recently in Sadie Plant's Writing on Drugs. Still, this is a solid work of scholarship that should be of interest to most academic libraries.
What casual reader knew Yeats was a hash smoker? Who would have guessed Proust had a penchant for opium? Maybe Sartre's mad, tangential ramblings betray the fact that he was a speed freak; but who knew he indulged, on occasion, in mescaline hallucinations? Marcus Boon's new critical study The Road of Excess documents these trips as well as those of the usual suspects of 'Drug Lit': De Quincey and Coleridge, Baudelaire and Michaux, Burrows [Burroughs?] and Kerouac, Phillip K. Dick and Tom Wolfe. --http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:ydzy_PSj7xgJ:www.oxonianreview.org/2-3-3.htm+drugs+in+literature+quincey+&hl=en [Feb 2005]
Drug books occupy a curious niche in the world of letters. My local bookshop calls their section "Altered States," and its volumes range promiscuously between history, mysticism, natural science, user manuals, social policy and poetry. Drugs may be the ultimate object of interdisciplinary studies. What other field can encompass Alan Watts and Irvine Welsh, Walter Benjamin essays and Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic & Amphetamine Manufacture? --Erik Davis via http://www.techgnosis.com/druglit.html [feb 2005]
2005, Feb 15; 09:22 ::: Transgressional fiction

Transgressional fiction is a form of literature in which the story centres around one or more characters who feel confined by the current norms and expectations of (usually Western) society. These characters, throughout the course of the story, attempt to break out from those boundaries and find that which they are looking for, be it better self-identity, inner peace, or anything else that they are unable to attain within the current boundaries.
Many of the characters' actions may be considered frequently anti-social and/or violent and nihilist, and so the genre is no stranger to controversy. The genre encompasses a number of famous modern works, some of which are listed below, not to mention a surprisingly wide variety of authors.
At the same time, less bound by societal restrictions, its proponents claim it is capable of pungent commentary upon the society its characters inhabit.
Minimalism is a common method of writing in transgressional fiction.
American novelist Chuck Palahniuk often uses the phrase transgressional fiction when describing his form of writing.
Literary ancestry
The basic ideas of trangressional fiction are by no means new.
In particular, it can be argued that the 19th century French author Émile Zola's works about social conditions, and 'bad behaviour' are direct ancestors. Zola's works were extremely controversial at the time. Later French work from the twentieth century is also a possible influence.
Dostoyevsky's novels Crime and Punishment (1866) and Notes from Underground (1864) also deal with some common themes, as does Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun's Hunger (1890).
In the United States, Charles Bukowski is a possible ancestor, as is perhaps Jack London.
In England, the genre owes a considerable influence to so called working class literature, which often portrays proletarian characters trying to escape the poverty trap by inventive means. In the USA, the genre has tended to focus more on middle class characters.
Authors of transgressional fiction

Steve Aylett
J.G. Ballard
Douglas Coupland
Bret Easton Ellis
Amy Hempel
Chuck Palahniuk
Irvine Welsh

Notable works of transgressional fiction
This is a short list of works of transgressional fiction that are of considerable popularity.

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgressional_fiction [Feb 2005]
see also Transgressive
2005, Feb 13; 00:35 ::: Jack London : Novels and Stories : Call of the Wild / White Fang / The Sea-Wolf / Klondike and Other Stories () - Jack London

Jack London : Novels and Stories : Call of the Wild / White Fang / The Sea-Wolf / Klondike and Other Stories () - Jack London [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Product Description:
Thrilling action, an intuitive feeling for animal life, a sense of justice that often works itself out through violence: these are the qualities that made Jack London phenomenally popular in his own day and continue to make him, at home and abroad, one of the most widely read of all American writers. "The Call of the Wild," perhaps the best novel ever written about animals, traces a dog's education for survival in the ways of the wolfpack. "White Fang," in which a wolf-dog becomes domesticated out of love for a man, is an unforgettable portrayal of a world of "hunting and being hunted, eating and being eaten, all in blindness and confusion." In "The Sea-Wolf," the primitive takes human form in the ruthless, indomitable Wolf Larsen, captain of a crew of outcasts on the lawless Alaskan seas. Set in the Klondike, California, Mexico, and the South Seas, the short stories collected here--many for the first time--show London as one of the great American storytellers.
First Sentence:
BUCK did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.
2005, Feb 13; 00:08 ::: Diary of a Drug Fiend (1922)- Aleister Crowley

Diary of a Drug Fiend (1922)- Aleister Crowley [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

First sentence: "Yea, I certainly was feeling depressed..." (more)
see also Aleister Crowley
2005, Feb 14; 22:53 ::: Rationalism

Rationalism, also known as the rationalist movement, is a philosophical doctrine that asserts that the truth should be determined by reason and factual analysis, rather than faith, dogma or religious teaching. Rationalism has some similarities in ideology and intent to secular humanism and atheism, in that it aims to provide a framework for social and philosophical discourse outside of religious or supernatural beliefs. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism [Feb 2005]
In philosophy, reason (from Latin ratio, by way of French raison) is the faculty by means of which or the process through which human beings perform thought, especially abstract thought. Many thinkers have pondered reason, and the various views on the nature of reason may not be compatible with one another.
Reason is sometimes narrowly defined as the faculty or process of drawing logical inferences. From Aristotle onwards, such reasoning has been classified as either deductive reasoning, meaning "from the general to the particular", or inductive reasoning, meaning "from the particular to the general". In the 19th century, Charles Peirce, an American philosopher, added a third classification, abductive reasoning, by which he meant "from the best available information to the best explanation", which has become an important component of the scientific method. In modern usage, "inductive reasoning" sometimes includes almost all non-deductive reasoning, including what Peirce would call "abductive". --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 14; 15:09 ::: Il Monumento Continuo, New New York - Superstudio (1969-1971)

Il Monumento Continuo, New New York - Superstudio (1969-1971)
Some 30 years ago, Superstudio, a group of radical Florentine architects, proposed a gridded superstructure that would wrap around the world. Eventually, this structure, Il Monumento Continuo, would cover the entire surface of the planet, leaving the Earth as featureless as the smoothest desert, or, more to the point, as a wilfully low-brow, suburban-style western city. http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/feature/0,1169,1048090,00.html [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 14; 13:52 ::: Presagio di rose (1967) - Archizoom

Presagio di rose (1967) - Archizoom, part of a dream bed series
Studio founded in 1966 in Firenze (Italy) by four architects: Andrea Branzi (born 1938), Gilberto Corretti (born 1941), Paolo Deganello (born 1940), Massimo Morozzi (born 1941) and two designers: Dario Bartolini (born 1943) and Lucia Bartolini (born 1944). They worked on exhibition installations and architecture and designed interiors and products. Archizoom was polemical in speech and practice in this period of social radicalism. In 1968, at the Triennale in Milan, they organized the 'Center for Eclectic Conspiracy'. In 1972, they declared the 'right to go against a reality that lacks 'meaning'... to act, modify, form, and destroy the surrounding environment. The 'Mies' chair is a well-known example of their work. --http://www.designaddict.com/design_index/index.cfm/fuseaction/designer_show_one/DESIGNER_ID/8/index.cfm [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 13; 23:20 ::: In Praise of Folly (1509|1511) - Desiderius Erasmus

In Praise of Folly (1509|1511) - Desiderius Erasmus [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Product Description:
Witty, influential work by one of the greatest scholars of the Renaissance satirizes the shortcomings of the upper classes and religious institutions. Required reading for humanities classes, this literary gem is ripe with vignettes and caricatures--with Folly, a metaphor for stupidity, the centerpiece. Unabridged republication of the John Wilson translation. --via Amazon.com
The Praise of Folly (Latin title: Moriae Encomium, sometimes translated as In Praise of Folly, Dutch title: Lof der Zotheid) is an essay written in 1509 by Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) and first printed in 1511. Erasmus revised and extended the work, which he originally wrote in the space of a week while sojourning with Sir Thomas More at More's estate in Bucklersbury. The Praise of Folly is considered one of the most influential works of literature in Western civilization and one of the catalysts of the Reformation. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise_of_Folly [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 13; 23:11 ::: Calm Sea (1887) - Arnold Böcklin

Calm Sea (1887) - Arnold Böcklin
2005, Feb 13; 15:02 ::: Palais Stoclet (1905-1911) - Josef Hoffmann

Palais Stoclet (1905 to 1911) - Josef Hoffmann, Brussels, Belgium
"The allusions to classicism, visible despite Hoffmann's conscious distortions, locks the building in an ordered and composed whole and places it in a world of lost archetypes: Roman, Flemish, Byzantine. In spite of its domestic forms the object is no longer recognizable in terms of type; located on the margins of a city largely composed of suburbs, more refined than anything most people are accustomed to, the Palais Stoclet, with its rarefied decorations and objets d'art, waits in its park for a silent crowd. Its sumptuous exterior, crowned by Metzner's sculptures, transforms it into an object with no other significance than an architectural one." -- Giuliano Gresleri. Josef Hoffmann. New York: Rizzoli, 1981. p60. via http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Stoclet_Palace.html [Feb 2005]
The Vienna Secession or (also known as Secessionstil, or Sezessionstil in Austria) was part of that highly varied movement that is now covered by the general term Art Nouveau. Sezessionstil architects liked to decorate the surface of their buildings with linear ornamentation in a form commonly called whiplash or eel styles. Otto Wagner's Majolika Haus in Vienna (c1898) is a significant example of the Austrian use of line. Otto Wagner's way of modifying Art Nouveau decoration in a classical manner did not find favour with some of his pupils who broke away to form the Secessionists. One was Josef Hoffmann who left to form the Wiener Werkstatte, an Austrian equivalent of the Arts and Crafts Movement. A good example of his work is the Stoclet House in Brussels (1905).
Other figures of the Vienna Secession include:

Gustav Klimt
Egon Schiele
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Secession [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 12; 20:05 ::: Those Who Came Before

Recently, I have been reading and re-reading texts by and about some of the central figures in 20th century design. Specifically, I’ve been spending time with, Misha Black, Kenji Ekuan, Moholy-Nagy, George Nelson, Dieter Rams, Etorre Sottsass, and Eva Zeisel. What I find so interesting is how many of our (my) contemporary ideas and concerns have been previously addressed by these and other designers. More specifically, what is troubling is how the written work of these designers seems to have been forgotten, or worse, gone unnoticed. There might be several reasons for this, paramount among them that writings by designers are simply not known of outside of design studies and that within design practice there is little emphasis placed on studying the writings of designers - the obvious emphasis being on studying their work. I also worry (with more than a hint of self-interest) that the writings of designers are discounted as being too intimate or not rigorous. -- via Robotarium by Carl DiSalvo, PhD candidate in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University, http://robotarium.com/weblog/index.php?p=23 [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 11; 19:19 ::: Dave Cooper

Untitled painting by Dave Cooper
image sourced from http://www.davegraphics.com/images/2004/image_2.jpg, Dave Cooper's site http://www.davegraphics.com
Books by Dave Cooper at http://fantagraphics.com/artist/d_cooper/cooper.html [Feb 2005]
Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, underground comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, and graphic novels located in the Maple Leaf neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1976 by Gary Groth and Mike Catron. Kim Thompson joined the company several years later, and is currently co-owner with Groth. In 2003 the company nearly went out of business, but was saved by a restructuring and an outpouring of support from customers.
Fantagraphics is dedicated to promoting comics as a venerable art form. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantagraphics_Books [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 11; 16:44 ::: La philosophie dans le boudoir (1948) - René Magritte

La philosophie dans le boudoir (1948) - René Magritte
See also: bedroom
2005, Feb 11; 13:56 ::: Chrysler building gargoyle (1930) - William van Alen

Chrysler building gargoyle (1930) - William van Alen
see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Building [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 11; 13:13 ::: Jeanne Lanvin's Bathroom (1920-22) - Armand Rateau

Jeanne Lanvin's Bathroom (1920-22) - Armand Rateau
Image sourced from http://drwagnernet.com/40b/lecture-view.cfm?lecture=8 [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 11; 11:30 ::: American Art Deco () - Alastair Duncan

American Art Deco () - Alastair Duncan [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Product Description:
Art Deco was the most important decorative style of the late 1920s and 1930s, and its expression in America was seen in virtually every area of the fine and decorative arts: architecture, sculpture, furniture, textiles, ceramics, silver, graphic arts, and jewelry. This splendid book explores the indigenous tradition of Art Deco in America and, in over 500 illustrations, reveals the beauty and extent of the style as it was manifested here. Most of the important buildings, in all parts of the country, were embellished with strong Art Deco themes. William van Alen, Ely Jacques Kahn, and Joseph Urban, among others, created some of the most memorable architecture of the century: the Chrysler Building and Radio City Music Hall in New York; the Union Trust Building in Detroit; the Richfield Oil Building and the Pan-Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles. Furniture, whether in homes, offices, restaurants, or nightclubs, was revolutionized by Art Deco's modernist stylizations (including the uniquely American skyscraper motif), and American designers from Paul Theodore Frankl to Donald Deskey to Russel Wright to Walker von Nessen created sofas, screens, and dressing tables in the Art Deco spirit. On radios, book covers, fabrics, automobiles--the influence of Art Deco abounded. This beautifully produced volume brings American Art Deco to life with illustrations of objects ranging from cocktail shakers to the Trylon and Perisphere of the 1939 World's Fair in New York. Alastair Duncan, an internationally acknowledged authority on Art Deco and Art Nouveau, and author of many books on the subject, has written the definitive volume on the American interpretations of one of the most successful design styles of the century.
2005, Feb 11; 10:57 ::: Butler House (1936) - George Kraetsch and E.E. Butler

Butler House (1936) - George Kraetsch and E.E. Butler [Des Moines, Iowa]
Image sourced from http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Lisle/30home/modern/butler.html [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 11; 10:49 ::: Pan Pacific Auditorium (1935) - Becket Wurdeman

Pan Pacific Auditorium (1935) - Becket Wurdeman
Image sourced from http://drwagnernet.com/40b/lecture-view.cfm?lecture=8 [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 11; 10:26 ::: The 1934 Chrysler Airflow

The 1934 Chrysler Airflow
2005, Feb 11; 10:26 ::: Belgian Pavillion

Belgian Pavillion (1937) - M.M. Van de Veild - Eggericx Verwilghen - Schmitz
Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la vie Moderne 1937 via http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~aprobert/paris371.htm [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 11; 10:02 ::: Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye (1954) - Rudolf Arnheim

Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye (1954) - Rudolf Arnheim [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Product Description:
Since its publication fifty years ago, this work has established itself as a classic. It casts the visual process in psychological terms and describes the creative way one's eye organizes visual material according to specific psychological premises. In 1974 this book was revised and expanded, and since then it has continued to burnish Rudolf Arnheim's reputation as a groundbreaking theoretician in the fields of art and psychology.
2005, Feb 10; 23:56 ::: Georges Lepape (1887-1971)

Georges Lepape, Les choses de Paul Poiret, Paris: Maquet, 1911

Georges Lepape (1887-1971) is considered one of the great Art Deco illustrators alongside Barbier and Erté. After illustrating Les choses de Paul Poiret his career took off. His work permeated the arts in theater, fashion, film, and literature. Beginning around 1916, Lepape illustrated covers for Vogue, where his whimsical yet elegant style of fashion illustration dominated until the 1930s. --http://www3.fitnyc.edu/museum/artful_line/nouveau4.htm [Dec 2004]
Paul Poiret (20 April 1879, Paris, France - 30 April 1944, Paris) was a couturier (dress designer) who worked in Paris in the years before World War I. He is best known for designing the hobble skirt. He worked as a designer in the fashion house of Charles Frederick Worth in Paris before opening his own shop in 1903. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poiret [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 10; 15:18 ::: Der Junge Törless/Young Toerless (1966) - Volker Schlöndorff

Der Junge Törless/Young Toerless (1966) - Volker Schlöndorff [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Description
Academy Award(tm)-winning director Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum) won the International Critics Award at Cannes for his first feature, a chilling allegory of war-time oppression. Set at a military boarding school at the turn of the century, the shy and intelligent Toerless wants to report the humiliation and torture of a fellow classmate, but remains silent when the others threaten to name him as an accomplice. This mind blowing psychological thriller contains striking performances - including one by Barbara Steele, the sultry queen of Italian cult Horror.
Der junge Törless (Young Törless) is a 1966 German movie directed by Volker Schlöndorff adapted from the autobiographical novel Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless by Robert Musil dealing with the sadistic and homoerotic tendencies of a group of boys at an Austrian military academy at the beginning of the 20th century.
When Thomas Törless (Mathieu Carrière) arrives at the academy, his interest is soon piqued by the apparently homosexual Anselm von Basini (Marian Seidowsky), who, after having been caught stealing by fellow student Reiting (Fred Dietz), becomes Reiting's "slave", bowing to Reiting's sadistic rituals. Törless follows their relationship with intellectual interest but without emotional involvement.
Also partaking in these sessions is Beineberg (Bernd Tischer), with whom Törless visits Bozena (Barbara Steele), the local prostitute. Again, Törless is aloof and more intrigued than excited by the woman.
When Basini and Törless are left alone in the academy, Törless sleeps with Basini, though he later decides it was just an experiment.
After Basini is nearly lynched by a mob because of one of Reiting's intrigues, Törless, having completed the transition from youth to adult, takes his life in his own hands for the first time and leaves the academy. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_junge_T%F6rless [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 10; 12:40 ::: Homophobia in reggae

Deal to ban 'homophobic' reggae
"The reggae industry is to refuse to release or stage concerts featuring homophobic songs under a global deal struck with gay rights groups."

From the BBC's site... "homophobia in Jamaica goes far beyond songs lyrics, with gay men and women "beaten, cut, burned, raped and shot on account of their sexuality", according to Amnesty International. It says while no official statistics are available, according to published reports at least 30 gay men are believed to have been murdered in Jamaica since 1997. And at least five Jamaicans have been granted asylum in the UK in the last two years because their lives had been threatened as a result of their sexual identity." --http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3653140.stm via http://dubdotdash.blogspot.com/ [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 09; 21:43 ::: Newton, Sex & Landscapes (2004) Philippe Garner, June Newton

Newton, Sex & Landscapes (2004) Philippe Garner, June Newton [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Product Description:
The collection "Sex & Landscapes" brings together a rich selection from Helmut Newton’s little-known landscape and travel photographs, as well as unseen "tougher" sex pictures, described by Philippe Garner of de Pury & Luxembourg as "Helmut’s world of dark, brooding seas, baroque statuary, crashing waves, a long desert highway under threatening skies, a Berlin park at dusk, enigmatic apartment buildings at night, the Rhine seen from the air, the shadows of airplanes, all this interwoven with hard and voyeuristic sexual imagery, plus a touch of his high style and glamour." The book’s publication coincides with the exhibition of "Sex and Landscapes," which will open on June 3 at the inauguration of the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin.
2005, Feb 09; 19:41 ::: Antwerp, Belgium, 1566: Beeldenstorm

Engraving of the Iconoclasm from G. Bouttat (1640-1703)
During the Iconoclasm of August 20, 1566, Protestants destroyed a large part of the valuable interior. When Antwerp came under Protestant administration in 1581, a number of artistic treasures were once again destroyed, removed or sold. Only after 1585, with the restoration of Roman Catholic authority, did tranquility return once more. --http://www.dekathedraal.be/en/tijdlijn/tl_4.htm [Feb 2005]
Some of the Protestant reformers encouraged their followers to destroy Catholic art works by insisting that they were idols. Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin promoted this approach to the adaptation of earlier buildings for Protestant worship. In 1562, some Calvinists destroyed the tomb of St. Irenaeus and the relics inside, which had been under the altar of a church since his martyrdom in 202.
The Netherlands (including Belgium) were hit by a large wave of Protestant iconoclasm in 1566. This is called the Beeldenstorm. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclastic#Reformation_iconoclasm [Feb 2005]
The english translation of beeldenstorm is iconoclasm.
Literally, an iconoclast is a person who destroys icons, that is, sacred paintings or sculpture.
The more common meaning in current usage is that an iconoclast is a person who carries out symbolic or quixotic acts of protest against authority figures. There is a connotation that the iconoclast opposes the imposition of authority itself rather than any particular policy or action. --http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclast [2004]
2005, Feb 08; 20:51 ::: Positif 50 Years (2002) - Michel Ciment, Laurence Kardish

Positif 50 Years: Selected writings from the French Film Journal (2002) - Michel Ciment, Laurence Kardish [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

About the Author
Laurence Kardish is Curator and Coordinator of film exhibitions in the Department of Film and Media at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Product Description:
To celebrate the 50th Anniversary and the 500th issue of the French film journal Positif--voilà! What could satisfy the cinephile more than an anthology, in English, of the very best Positif articles from the last five decades? A preeminent film magazine since its inception, the monthly Positif has always been at the forefront of critical thought, discerning trends in cinema as they are happening. With over 40 articles covering some of the most notable films of the past 50 years, this compendium reveals how the magazine accomplished that very feat throughout its existence. Read Bernard Chardère on Luis Buñuel's Los Olvidados, Paul-Louis Thirard on Maurice Burnan, Robert Benayoun on Frederico Fellini, and other critics on flicks from The African Queen and Hiroshima mon Amour to Reservoir Dogs and Fanny and Alexander. With an introduction by Michel Ciment, the editor of the magazine, and articles by distinguished critics and practitioners, this compilation pays tribute to both the importance of films and the lasting value of Positif.
Edited by Lawrence Kardish.
Essays by Bernard Chadère, Jacques Demeure, Michel Subiela, Paul-Louis Thirard, Roger Tailleur, Ado Kyrou, Bernard Pingaud, Bertrand Tavernier, Jean-Paul Török, Robert Benayoun, Louis Seguin, Michel Pérez, Frédéric Vitoux, Lorenzo Codelli, Alain Garsautl, Jacques Goimard, Michel Sineux, Michael Henry, Gérard Legrand, Isabelle Jordan, Jacques Segond and Petr Kral --Amazon.com [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 08; 19:00 ::: Harmful to Minors (2002) Judith Levine

Harmful to Minors (2002) Judith Levine [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex (ISBN 0816640068) is a book by Judith Levine that was published in 2002 with a foreword by former United States Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.
In the book, Levine lambasts US laws concerning child pornography, statutory rape, and abortion for minors. It also analyzes abstinence only sex education, which Levine considers counter-productive and dangerous.
Because of its controversial nature and content, it was nearly impossible for Levine to find a publisher-one prospective publisher even called it "radioactive." University of Minnesota Press eventually agreed to publish the book, despite cries of outrage from the right wing of Minnesota's political establishment.
It became famous after it won the Los Angeles Times Book Award. Conservatives such as Joe Scarborough and Robert Knight inaccurately accused Levine of promoting pedophilia for her suggestion that the US adopt statutory rape laws similar to those in the Netherlands. Some demanded the book be removed from libraries. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmful_to_Minors [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 08; 12:15 ::: Robert Smithson's land art

Spiral Jetty (1970) - Robert Smithson
Spiral Jetty, considered to be the masterpiece of American sculptor Robert Smithson, is the name of an earthwork sculpture built in 1970. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Jetty
2005, Feb 08; 12:08 ::: Paul Mccarthy (1996) - Ralph Rugoff

Paul Mccarthy (Contemporary Artists) (1996) - Ralph Rugoff [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

From Library Journal
If we are to see art as a mirror of society, the work of Paul McCarthy reflects all that is perverted, violent, and deranged in this world. Characterized by crawling around on hands and knees in specially built environments (e.g., Santa's workshop) and dousing his body in ketchup and mayonnaise, his performances repulse, but he remains one of the most talked-about artists today. Published in conjunction with a retrospective exhibition at New York's New Museum of Contemporary Art, this catalog documents over 30 years of McCarthy's art, including performance, installation, video, and photographic work. One of the strengths of this publication is the critical analysis provided by three highly regarded scholars. In comparison, the 1996 monograph from Phaidon Press's "Contemporary Artist" series of the same title offers performance scripts, interviews with the artist, and samples of his own writing. Both publications offer a plethora of color and black-and-white reproductions. Recommended for libraries with good contemporary art collections. Krista Ivy, Bryn Mawr Coll. Lib., PA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Product Description:
Working in a pioneering fusion of sculpture and conceptually based performance, Paul McCarthy is one of the most influential figures in contemporary art-however the full range is of his oeuvre is still not fully appreciated or understood. While his architectural installations incorporating video and performance artifacts have received copious critical and curatorial attention during the present decade, few viewers are familiar with the scope of his artistic evolution, or with the impact his works had had on two generations of Los Angeles artists. This catalogue-accompanying McCarthy exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in new York-covers more than 100 works from all areas of his activity, and gives an exemplary insight into McCarthy's works form the early 70s up to the present day. Experts on his work give comprehensive descriptions and analyses of the artist's performances and installations, examine the unique ties between his works and the cinematic arts, and explore the ongoing dialogue between the artistic cultures of New York and Los Angeles, particularly in terms of the development of conceptual art.--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
2005, Feb 07; 23:15 ::: Selected censorship incidents

1497 - Savonarola promotes 'bonfire of vanities' in Florence

1558 - 'fig leaves' added to Michelangelo's Last Judgement

1573 - Veronese ordered to 'correct' his Last Supper

1832 - Daumier punished for caricature of Louis-Philippe by six months in prison

1873 Comstock Act in US

1898 - Klimt's Vienna Sezession 'Minotaur' poster emasculated

1918 - UK ban on reproduction of CR Nevinson's Paths of Glory

1933 - Rockefeller Center mural by Diego Rivera destroyed after featuring image of Lenin

1934 - Cadmus' The Fleet's In! withdrawn from PWAP exhibition at Corcoran Gallery in Washington

1938 Entartete Kunst exhibition in Munich and further purging of official collections in Germany

1961 - suppression of Siqueiros murals in Mexico City

1964 - Warhol's Thirteen Most Wanted Men mural at New York World's Fair painted over

1989 - Corcoran Gallery cancels Mapplethorpe exhibition

1997 - 'Piss Christ' controversy at National Gallery of Victoria

2001 Taliban destroys Bamiyan sculptures in Afghanistan
--http://www.caslon.com.au/censorshipguide13.htm [Feb 2005]
Caslon Analytics censorship and free speech guide
This guide explores censorship, regulation of offensive material and free speech in the digital environment. It includes discussion of freedom of information, archives and whistleblowing legislation. --http://www.caslon.com.au/censorshipguide.htm [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 07; 23:15 ::: Francisco de Goya (1746-1828)

Two of Goya's most famous pictures, shown above, are known as The Clothed Maja and The Nude Maja (La Maja vestida and La Maja desnuda). They depict the same woman in the same pose, clothed and naked respectively. La Maja Vestida was painted after outrage in Spanish society over the previous Desnuda. He refused to paint clothes on her, and so simply created a new painting. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Goya [Feb 2005]

Saturn Devouring His Son (1819)
Another one of his more famous works is "Saturn Devouring His Son", which displays a Greco-Roman mythological scene of the god Saturn consuming a child. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Goya [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 07; 22:54 ::: The Encyclopedia of Censorship (1990) - Jonathon Green

The Encyclopedia of Censorship (1990) - Jonathon Green [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

From Library Journal
The crowded roster of those who have been affected by censorship, as well as the books, films, and other works attacked, are found in these informative pages. Controversies that have arisen over the years are given historical context; highly valuable national wrap-ups treat the culture, law, and predominant trends of diverse lands. The entries, written in factual, declamatory style, are usually less than a page. Bibliographic detail is limited, but the literature is well represented. Green makes little attempt to convey the censor's outlook; he states that in his research he found few writings advocating censorship. Though he details censorship in U.S libraries, he takes little note of the most recent developments. Still, this work should be useful in fielding queries with free-expression angles. Recommended for most libraries. -- William A. Donovan, Chicago P.L., Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
2005, Feb 07; 20:50 ::: La Marge (1967) - André Pieyre de Mandiargues

La Marge (1967) - André Pieyre de Mandiargues [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

1967 - André Pieyre de Mandiargues, La Marge , winner of The Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious prize in French language literature. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prix_Goncourt [Feb 2005]

L'anglais décrit dans le château fermé (1953) - Morion Pierre [André Pieyre de Mandiargues] [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
2005, Feb 07; 20:50 ::: The Barcelona Pavilion (1929) - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

The Barcelona Pavilion, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, was the German Pavilion for the 1929 World's Fair in Barcelona. It was an important building in the history of modern architecture, known for its simple form and extravagant material, such as marble and travertine.
The building stood on a large podium alongside a pool. The structure itself consisted of eight steel posts supporting a flat roof, with curtain glass walling and a handful of paritition walls. The overall impression is of perpendicular planes in three dimensions forming a cool, luxurious space.
The Pavilion was demolished at the end of the exhibition, but a copy has since been built on the same site. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona_Pavilion [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 07; 19:42 ::: The Style of the Century: 1900-1980 () - Bevis Hillier

The Style of the Century: 1900-1980 () - Bevis Hillier [Amazon.com]
From Book News, Inc.
The venerable Hillier (London Times, British Museum, Connoisseur, etc.) reviews Euro-American art styles from Edwardian to post-punk, as manifest in architecture, fashion, automobile design, pop music, and other joys and trials of daily life. No bibliography. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
Product Description:
In this ambitious book Bevis Hillier cuts a wide swath through social and decorative history and give a far-ranging view of the twentieth century, from Edwardian and Art Nouveau to some startling predictions about what we may expect before "the magic year 2000".
2005, Feb 07; 19:15 ::: Emmanuelle

Emmanuelle. Edition originale clandestine sans nom d'auteur, d'éditeur (Losfeld) ni de date (1959), 308 p. Couverture bleue. 14x20 cm. --http://emmanuellearsan.free.fr/bibliographie.htm [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 07; 12:16 ::: Barbarella

Barbarella (1962) - Jean-Claude Forest
Barbarella (1962) - Jean-Claude Forest [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

The first saga of Barbarella in 1962 is comprised of eight episodes. The young heroine is introduced as a space wanderer in a solar system far from Earth. Crash-landing on planet Lythion, Barbarella becomes involved in a war between the Crystallians, who inhabit a giant greenhouse, and the barbaric Orhomrs, who live in the frozen wasteland outside. With a little bit of love, she prompts them to make peace with each other.
Two years after the start of Barbarella's publication in V-Magazine, French publisher Eric Losfeld, who specialized in fantasy and erotic literature, offered to collect the stories in book form. Published in 1964, the album was a phenomenal success. It quickly sold more than 200,000 copies, despite the censor's ruling that the book could not be publicly displayed.
Dubbed the "first comic strip for grown-ups," Barbarella attracted rave reviews from a varied assortment of magazines including French literary weekly Arts ("a modern epic"), Newsweek ("a mythic creature of the space age"), and Playboy ("the very 'apoptheosis' of eroticism"). --http://www.hollywoodcomics.com/forestint.html [Feb 2005]
Barbarella was originally a French science fiction comic book created by Jean-Claude Forest, who originated the character for serialisation in the French magazine V-Magazine in 1962. The comic stars Barbarella, a young woman who has numerous adventures, often involving sex, while journeying around the galaxy. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarella [Feb 2005]

Barbarella (1968) - Roger Vadim [Amazon.com]
A movie adaptation [of Barbarella] was made in 1968.
It is famous for a sequence in which the title character performs a striptease in zero gravity during the opening credits.
Barbarella is one of the few science fiction erotica films and includes an erotic torture device that is described in the orgasmatron article.
The whole film is played in a very tongue-in-cheek manner-especially when it comes to the frequent (but non-explicit) sex scenes. The special effects look cheaply-made and unconvincing, but there is a suggestion that they are meant to look that way in order to reinforce the film's camp atmosphere.
The film was simultaneously shot in French and English. In the French version, Fonda performs her own lines in French. In the English version Pallenberg's lines are dubbed by Fenella Fielding, at least according to the region2 DVD booklet notes, although others have claimed that the voice actually belongs to Joan Greenwood. Marceau's lines are also dubbed into English.
De Laurentiis returned to camp science fiction (but without the erotica) with 1980's Flash Gordon. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarella [Feb 2005]
Sex in science fiction
Modern science fiction frequently involves themes of sex, gender and sexuality. This was not always so. During the 1930s and 40s "golden age" of science fiction sex was rarely if ever even mentioned, although there was certainly no lack of innuendo and suggestion. The idea, however, that strong female characters played little or no role in the pulps of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, is wrong. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_in_science_fiction [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 07; 12:00 ::: Pravda

Pravda (1967) - Pascal Thomas & Guy Pellaert
Pravda la Survireuse [Pravda the Overdriver] is a leather-clad, panther-bike-riding amazon whose adventures take place in a Mad Max-like, futuristic city, inhabited by degenerate people.
Pravda was initially serialized in the magazine "Hara-Kiri" in 1967. It was then collected as a graphic novel by publicher Eric Losfeld in 1968.
Pravda was designed to look like French singer Francois Hardy;
Eric Losfeld had previously published Jean-Claude Forest's Barbarella in 1964, and Philippe Druillet's Lone Sloane and Guy Pellaert's Jodelle. --http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/pravda.htm [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 06; 17:36 ::: Michel Mourre

[...] one Michel Mourre, who in 1950 took over Easter Mass at Notre-Dame to proclaim the death of God --http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/MARLIP.html [Feb 2005]
April 9, 1950
A group of lettrists - including Serge Berna, Jean-Louis Brau, Ghislain Desnoyers de Marbaix and Michel Mourre - perpetrates the Notre-Dame Scandal, when Mourre, dressed as a Dominican monk, reads a sermon prepared by Berna announcing the death of God at Easter mass. --http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/chronology/1956.html [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 06; 16:23 ::: Valie Export

Tapp und Tastkino (1968) - Valie Export
B/W photo, Ed. 1/5, 76 x 85 x 4 cm
Photo: Galerie Charim, Wien
Valie Export (Waltraud Hollinger)
Born 1940, Liz, Austria. --http://www.the-artists.org/ArtistView.cfm?id=24E7F726-FD7D-4D1B-B256E3479AD0155E [Feb 2005]
1968 - Valie Export (a lady) appeared on the street with a miniature puppet-theatre stage constructed around her bare, but hidden, breasts. Using a bull-horn she invited the public to step up, reach through the curtains and touch her breasts (Tapp und Tastkino). --http://www.xs4all.nl/~kazil/advart01.html [Feb 2005]
1969 - Valie Export dressed in pants with the crotch cut away and a machine gun slung over her shoulder entered a pornographic cinema in Munich. Adressing the audience that had come to watch genitalia on the screen she announced that "real" genitalia were available and that they could do whatever they wished. The people left the theatre. (Genital Panic). --http://www.xs4all.nl/~kazil/advart01.html [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 05; 17:34 ::: Amnesty International

Poster for Amnesty International (1982) - Roland Topor
Freedom of speech is the right to freely say what you please, as well as the related right to hear what others have stated. It is self-explanatory. Recently, it has been commonly understood as encompassing full freedom of expression, including the freedom to create and distribute movies, pictures, songs, dances, and all other forms of expressive communication. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech [Oct 2004]
2005, Feb 05; 17:34 ::: Nuit de Chine, erotic bookstore, Brussels, Belgium

Images Interdites (1989) - Yves Frémion, Bernard Joubert [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Cover image by Roland Topor
Nuit de Chine
Place Fontainas 26 - 1000 Bruxelles
Bought
Amour - érotisme et cinéma (1957) - Ado Kyrou
Images Interdites (1989) - Yves Frémion, Bernard Joubert
L’histoire de la censure au cinéma, dans les journaux, les revues, les affiches et les livres.
Fascination 27 (1985)
Owner of Nuit de Chine (Hugues Delwart?) told me that Yoshifumi Hayashi lives and works in Paris. Supposedly he guides Japanese tourists in a Paris museum.
Lots of Pichard albums, japanese bondage magazines, issues of Fascination, old issues of Maniac, eroticism in cinema, erotic fiction, dvds, vhs, comics.
Nuit de Chine appears to be the Brussels equivalent of Un Regard Moderne, in Paris. Is there an equivalent in other cities around the world? [Feb 2005]

2005, Feb 04; 14:04 ::: Masochism as a psychoanalytic concept

Psychoanalysis as a method of investigation and masochism as a subject of research came into existence at about the same time. The designation of masochism is about ten years older, depending upon the date one chooses for the beginning of psychoanalysis. As a result, the ideas about the special place of the newly defined perversion in sexuality and mental life exerted an influence on the development of psychoanalysis. There were many disagreements among Freud's contemporaries in their efforts to delineate and define a syndrome named masochism, and to discover its broader significance in the lives of men and of animals. These conflicts reflected diverse ways of thinking about scientific problems. Havelock Ellis (1903), for example, offered a combination of romanticized and naturalistic descriptions of animal behavior in an effort to demonstrate the biological roots of sadism in the animal kingdom. Ellis spoke of the "thin veil that divides love and death" (p. 127) throughout nature, thus blending dramatically the psychological and phylogenetic aspects of the sexual function. In particular, the association between the sexual act and cannibalism among some organisms seemed to some authors of the time to be the primitive source of sadism. Ellis added, however, that de Gourmont (1858-1915)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remy_de_Gourmont] said that "this sexual cannibalism exerted by the female may have, primarily, no erotic significance: 'She eats him because she is hungry and because when exhausted he is an easy prey'" (p. 128). This pair of formulations evidently indicates a conflict between tragic interpretation and mechanistic explanation. --William I. Grossman, M.D., Notes on Masochism: A Discussion of the History and Development of a Psychoanalytic Concept, http://www.psychoanalysis.net/IPPsa/Grossman/Notes%20on%20Masochism.htm [Feb 2005]
In "The Economic Problem of Masochism" (1924), the factors of erotogenic pain, subjugation to a sexual object, and sexual activity in which the other factors played a part had acquired a developmental and structural significance in Freud's theory. There the triad became three observable forms of masochism: the erotogenic, the moral, and the feminine. The erotogenic, Freud said, underlies the other two, and its "basis must be sought along biological and constitutional lines …" (p. 161). In other words, it is developmentally the oldest and belongs to the id. Moral masochism, like "sexual bondage," is a sexualized submission to a loved object, who, in this case, is enshrined uneasily in the superego. Feminine masochism refers to the perversion and is an infantile sexual development belonging to the ego. A peculiarity of Freud's introduction to his three types of masochism creates an ambiguity about the relations among erotogenic masochism, feminine masochism, and the masochistic perversion, so that some authors equate the perversion with erotogenic masochism, others with feminine masochism. This results from Freud's (1924, p. 161) writing that "masochism comes under our observation in three forms: as a condition imposed on sexual excitation, as an expression of the feminine nature, and as a norm of behaviour." It sounds as though the "condition imposed on sexual excitation" describes masochistic perversion, since the perversion is often defined in this way, and as though "an expression of the feminine nature" describes women. Certainly much of the literature on femininity and female sexuality cites the passage in this sense. However, it is clear in what follows immediately that feminine masochism is the perversion and that erotogenic masochism is independent of gender. "Feminine nature," in this context, would seem to refer to femininity as an element of bisexuality (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1967). This conception is very likely a derivative of the ideas considered by Krafft-Ebing to the effect that masochism in men involves a feminine inheritance and might be a "rudimentary contrary sexual instinct," that is, a homosexual impulse. --William I. Grossman, M.D., Notes on Masochism: A Discussion of the History and Development of a Psychoanalytic Concept, http://www.psychoanalysis.net/IPPsa/Grossman/Notes%20on%20Masochism.htm [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 04; 11:23 ::: New York City: Paradise Garage (1977 -1987)

The Paradise Garage opened in 1977
2005, Feb 04; 10:45 ::: A Clockwork Orange - (1971) - Stanley Kubrick

Eventually Alex is caught and "rehabilitated" by a program of aversion therapy, which, though rendering him incapable of violence (even in self-defence), also makes him unable to enjoy his favourite classical music as an unintended side effect. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 04; 09:03 ::: Senses

Seeing - Tasting - Hearing - Feeling - Smelling
To arrive at the unknown through the disordering of all the senses, that's the point. --Arthur Rimbaud, 1871

Main character finds ear at the beginning of Blue Velvet (1986)
Senses are the physiological methods of perception. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields, but most notably neuroscience, cognitive psychology (or cognitive science), and philosophy of perception.
There is no firm agreement amongst neurologists as to exactly how many senses there are. The disagreements stem from a lack of consensus as to what the definition of a sense should be. Although schoolchildren are still routinely taught that there are five senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste; a classification first devised by Aristotle), it is generally agreed that there are at least nine different senses in humans, and a minimum of two more observed in other organisms. --http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense
2005, Feb 03; 13:54 ::: Olivetti Divisumma 18

Olivetti Divisumma 18 (Mario Bellini - 1973)
2005, Feb 03; 13:22 ::: Amores Perros (2000) - Alejandro González Iñárritu

Amores Perros (2000) - Alejandro González Iñárritu [Amazon.com]
Amores perros (retitled Love's A Bitch in some English-speaking markets) is a 2000 Mexican film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and starring Gael García Bernal. It is an example of a Portmanteau film.
It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in the year of its release. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amores_perros [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 03; 00:28 ::: Fabrica (1543) - Vesalius

Fabrica (1543) - Vesalius
Challenging Galenism
At age 25, Vesalius launched a full assault on Galen. Lecturing at Padua and then at Bologna, he rigged up skeletons of humans and of Barbary macaques, and showed the assembled students how wrong Galen had been. Vesalius then set out to put together a new anatomy book that included his discoveries. Over the next four years Vesalius worked with the finest block cutters of Venice and draftsmen from Titian’s workshop. He named his book De humani corporis fabrica libri septem, or “The Seven Books on the Structure of the Human Body”-commonly known as the Fabrica. In this 1543 masterwork, men and women now stood stripped of skin and Skeletons leaned lazily against columns in the rolling Italian countryside.
Humans Are Not so Unique
Fabrica launched a new tradition in anatomy in Europe, in which anatomists trusted only their own observations and explored the body like a new continent. Vesalius’ discovery of the important differences between species also helped usher in the science of comparative anatomy, in which researchers studied animals to find their similarities and differences. In the process, they gradually began to recognize humans as being one species among many, with a few unique traits but many others shared in common with other animals. Some 300 years after Vesalius first shook off the blind obedience to Galen, Darwin used that vast stock of anatomical knowledge to build his theory of evolution. --http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/history/compar_anat2.shtml [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 03; 00:09 ::: Taste in the history of Aesthetics from the renaissance to 1770
“Taste” is relevant to the history of ideas as the power of liking or disliking something, and of ruling one's judgment or conduct according to this power. Still, in this broader meaning, “taste” is used very widely but rather atypically; it is of major importance only as applied to aesthetics, where it becomes, during the seventeenth century, one of the central and most controversial notions. As such, it is the subject of many discussions and of extremely wide implications-the basic dimensions of which follow below. --Giorgio Tonelli via http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv4-47 [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 02; 22:56 ::: Mark Ryden (1963 - )

via http://www.zoorender.com/zoomotion/html/G03.htm [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 02; 22:56 ::: Rinat baibekov via arterotika.blogspot.com

Rinat baibekov
via http://arterotika.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_arterotika_archive.html via http://www.picassomio.com/artist-portfolio/926/es/ [Feb 2005]
Kazan, Russia, 1962 -
Established Russian-born, England-based artist, Rinat Baibekov is an accomplished SURREALIST painter.
Trained at the Art Institute, Kazan and at the Fine Arts Academy of Kharkov, this mid-career artist has exhibited across Europe. --http://www.rendiva.com/profile/Rinat-Baibekov--926 [Feb 2005]
see also: http://arterotika.blogspot.com
2005, Feb 02; 22:39 ::: Gamiani, ou Une Nuit d'Excès (1833) - Alfred de Musset

Gamiani, ou Une Nuit d'Excès (1833) - Alfred de Musset
12 illustrations by Achille Dévéria and Pierre Grévedon. --http://www.eroticabibliophile.com/illustrators_deveria.html [Feb 2004]
2005, Feb 02; 20:46 ::: On Style (1966) - Susan Sontag

In the essay "On Style," published in the same volume, Ms. Sontag offended many readers by upholding the films of Leni Riefenstahl as masterworks of aesthetic form, with little regard for their content. Ms. Sontag would eventually reconsider her position in the 1974 essay "Fascinating Fascism." --http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/sontag01.htm [Feb 2005]
It would be hard to find any reputable literary critic today who would care to be caught defending as an idea the old antithesis of style versus content. On this issue a pious consensus prevails. Everyone is quick to avow that style and content are indissoluble, that the strongly individual style of each important writer is an organic aspect of his work and never something merely "decorative." --On Style (1966) - Susan Sontag via Against Interpretation (1966) - Susan Sontag

2005, Feb 01; 23:58 ::: Index Librorum Prohibitorum

1667 copy of the Index at 1,354,22 USD (picture not shown) [Amazon.com]
The first official censorship had come in 1559 with the publication of the Index auctorum et librorum prohibitorum under the direction of Pope Paul IV. The Pauline index, as it became known, was the first in a long succession of papal indexes, forty-two in all. The purpose of these indexes was to guide censors in their decisions of what publications to authorize and which to disallow, for printers were not free to publish books without official permission. In January of 1562 the Council of Trent took up the issue of the Index and was deeply divided. The Pauline index had been seen by many as too controversial and excessively restrictive. After the opening speeches, the council appointed a commission to draft a new index. Although the council closed before the task of the commission was completed, the new Tridentine index was taken up by Pope Pius IV and published in 1564 by Paulus Manutius in Rome. This index constituted the most authoritative guide the church had yet published; its lists formed the basis of all subsequent indexes, while its rules were accepted as the guide for future censors and compilers. --http://library.lib.byu.edu/~aldine/51Index.html [Feb 2005]
See also http://www.uno.edu/~asoble/pages/librorum.htm where the image comes from.
It has proved to be somewhat difficult to get a complete list of books included on the Index. What follows is at least a partial list, derived from http://www.union-fin.fr/~bcourcel/LivresInterdits.html.
--http://www.uno.edu/~asoble/pages/librorum.htm [Feb 2005]
Surprisingly, Amazon has a 1667 copy for sale for 1,354,22 USD. --[Amazon.com] [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 01; 23:22 ::: List of authors of erotic works
This is a list of notable authors of erotic literature.
Sex manuals [...]

Vatsayana -- famous for the Kama Sutra
Ovid -- Roman author famous for the Ars Amatoria
Fiction [...]

Li Yu -- author of The Carnal Prayer Mat
Laura Antoniou -- author of The Marketplace
Aran Ashe
Georges Bataille
Penny Birch
Patrick (Pat) Califia -- author of Macho Sluts
John Cleland -- author of Fanny Hill
James Joyce
Arabella Knight
D. H. Lawrence -- author of Lady Chatterley's Lover
William Levy
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch -- author of Venus in Furs
Barry N. Malzberg--author of Screen and writer/editor for Olympia Press
Henry Miller -- author of Tropic of Cancer
Anais Nin
Pauline Réage -- author of Histoire d'O
Anne Rice, also writing as A. N. Roquelaure
Catherine Robbe-Grillet
the Marquis de Sade -- author of Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue
Wendy Swanscombe
Alexander Trocchi
Mark Twain -- author of 1601
Poetry

Catullus -- Roman erotic poet
Sextus Propertius -- Roman poet
Sappho -- Greek poetess from the island of Lesbos who wrote love poetry to young women.
Autobiography

Catherine Millet
Frank Harris
"Walter", author of My Secret Life
Lisa B. Falour
Nancy Friday
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authors_of_erotic_works [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 01; 23:05 ::: 1601 (1880) - Mark Twain

1601 (1880) - Mark Twain [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
[Date: 1601.] Conversation, as it was the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors. or simply 1601 is the title of a humorous work by Mark Twain, first published anonymously in 1880, and finally claimed by Twain in 1906.
Written as an extract from the diary of one of Queen Elizabeth's servants, 1601 was, according to Edward Wagenknecht, "the most famous piece of pornography in American literature." It was more ribaldry than pornography, however; its content was more in the nature of irreverent and vulgar comedic shock than of "obscene" erotica. Nevertheless, in the United States, prior to the court decisions (1959-1966) that legalized the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic of Cancer, and Fanny Hill, the book continued to be considered unprintable, and circulated clandestinely in privately-printed, limited editions. Its characterization as "pornography" would be satirized in 1939 by Franklin J. Meine in the introduction to an edition of the work. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1601_%28Mark_Twain%29 [Feb 2005]
2005, Feb 01; 22:34 ::: Obscene: The history of an indignation (1962) - Ludwig Marcuse

Obscene: The history of an indignation (1962) - Ludwig Marcuse [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Marcuse, Ludwig. Obscene; The History of an Indignation. London, MacGibbon & Key, 1965. 327p.
This study of obscenity by a German professor (first published in 1962 by Paul List Verlag) centers around leading obscenity trials: Friedrich Schlegel's Lucinde (Jena, 1799), Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (Paris, 1857), Arthur Schnitzler's Round Dance (Berlin, 1920), D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley (London, 1960), and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer (Los Angeles, 1962). A chapter is also devoted to the crusade of Anthony Comstock and the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Marcuse describes Comstock as "a cross between Barnum and McCarthy." A final chapter en titled Seven Theses to Disarm Indignation gives the gist of the author's views on obscenity. --http://www.lib.siu.edu/cni/letter-m1.html [Feb 2005]
see also: obscene and http://www.aphrodite.de/outside/00/01/00191_Obsz_n_Marcuse_Ludwig.php4 from which the book cover is taken.
2005, Feb 01; 10:31 ::: Spirited Away (2001) - Hayao Miyazaki

Spirited Away (2001) - Hayao Miyazaki [Amazon.com]
In the movie, Chihiro Ogino is a little girl who moves to the country with her parents, Akio and Yuko . She is clearly unhappy about the move and appears rather petulant. They lose their way and come across a tunnel, and out of curiosity, enter it, unaware that it actually provides access into the spirit world - and specifically to a spirit bath house - a place where the spirits and gods (drawn from the Shinto religious tradition) go to rest and relax. The family enters what is apparently an abandoned theme park populated with restaurants, and Chihiro's parents, finding a place to eat, immediately help themselves to a meal. Chihiro is uneasy, and hesitates outside, watching her parents eat like pigs; soon they actually transform into large pigs. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirited_Away [Jan 2005]
2005, Feb 01; 10:11 ::: The Isle of the Dead (1880) - Arnold Böcklin

The Isle of the Dead (1880) - Arnold Böcklin
Arnold Böcklin (16 October 1827 - 16 January 1901) was a Swiss-German artist. Böcklin is best known for his painting The Isle of the Dead.
Isle of the Dead (or Island of the Dead; Toteninsel in the original German) is one of the best known paintings by Swiss-German artist Arnold Böcklin, as well as a piece of music by Sergei Rachmaninoff, a film by Val Lewton and a novel by Roger Zelazny. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_the_Dead [Jan 2005]
January 2005 [...]

Previous Months
2005 January |
2004 December | 2004 November | 2004 October | 2004 September | 2004 August | 2004 July | 2004 June | 2004 May | 2004 April | 2004 March | 2004 February | 2004 January |
2003 Dec | 2003 Nov | 2003 Oct | 2003 Sep | 2003 Aug | 2003 Jul | 2003 Jun | 2003 May | 2003 Apr | 2003 Mar | 2003 Feb | 2003 Jan |
2002 Dec | 2002 Nov | 2002 Oct | 2002 Sep | 2002 Aug | 2002 Jul | 2002 Jun | 2002 May | 2002 Apr | 2002 Mar | 2002 Feb | 2002 Jan |
2001 Dec | 2001 Nov

Blogs I Frequent

http://www.sauer-thompson.com/conversations/ Philosophical conversations between two Australians Trevor and Gary, covering a wide range of philosophical topics.
http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~aabb/plus9.html A daily, art-related, weblog from Osaka, Japan.
http://www.mixoftheweek.com Pre-recorded, weekly mixes of soul, house, techno, dub and other groovy sounds. Consistent high quality.
http://www.novaplanet.com/radiolive/novalive.asp radio-station, broadcasting from Paris

your Amazon recommendations - Jahsonic - early adopter products
Managed Hosting by NG Communications

[<<] February 2005 Blog [>>]

2005, Feb 28; 14:31 ::: John Currin (2003) - Robert Rosenblum

2005, Feb 28; 14:19 ::: Lisa Yuskavage : Small Paintings 1993-2004 (2004) - Tamara Jenkins

2005, Feb 28; 14:16 ::: Vanessa Beecroft : Performances 1993-2003 (2003) Marcella Beccaria

2005, Feb 28; 13:42 ::: Flores, Indonesia

2005, Feb 28; 12:31 ::: The Great Laughter

2005, Feb 27; 19:24 ::: Underground index

2005, Feb 27; 18:19 ::: Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History of America's Romance With Illegal Drugs (1996) - Jill Jonnes

2005, Feb 27; 18:03 ::: Social sciences

2005, Feb 27; 17:34 ::: Underground economy, black markets and free markets

2005, Feb 27; 16:22 ::: Christiane F. Wir Kinder [Original Soundtrack] (1981) - David Bowie

2005, Feb 27; 16:19 ::: Christiane F. (1981) - Uli Edel

2005, Feb 27; 16:22 ::: Heroin: cultural influences

2005, Feb 27; 13:21 ::: The Maids (1974) Christopher Miles

2005, Feb 27; 10:46 ::: The Art of Discipline (1996) - A K S Books

2005, Feb 27; 10:30 ::: Decadence: Japanese Erotic Art (2004) - Carol Gnojewski

2005, Feb 27; 10:20 ::: Le Ministère de la Marine (1865) - Charles Meryon

2005, Feb 26; 11:53 ::: Wikipedia:What links here

2005, Feb 26; 10:40 ::: Choice (2004) - Various Artists, Mixed by X-Press 2

2005, Feb 26; 10:38 ::: Trax Records 20th Anniversary Collection [BOX SET] (2004) - Various Artists

2005, Feb 25; 10:42 ::: Mystery fiction

2005, Feb 25; 10:06 ::: Psychogeography, flânerie and the dérive

2005, Feb 24; 22:51 ::: The flâneur of Charles Baudelaire’s Paris

2005, Feb 24; 21:13 ::: As Nasty As They Wanna Be (1989) - 2 Live Crew

2005, Feb 24; 21:13 ::: The Golden Ass: Or Metamorphoses (100s) - Apuleius

2005, Feb 24; 20:40 ::: The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory

2005, Feb 24; 18:30 ::: Semantic similarity

2005, Feb 24; 17:44 ::: The oneiric house by Gaston Bachelard

2005, Feb 24; 13:12 ::: Maria Jolas, Woman of Action: A Memoir and Other Writings (2004) - Mary Ann Caws

2005, Feb 24; 12:24 ::: Phinnweb

2005, Feb 24; 11:13 ::: Things to Come (1936) - William Cameron Menzies

2005, Feb 23; 23:13 ::: Ghost Dog (1999) - Jim Jarmusch

2005, Feb 23; 20:43 ::: Coffret Leroux Gaston 2vols - Gaston Leroux

2005, Feb 23; 19:18 ::: Phantom of the opera

2005, Feb 23; 14:53 ::: Les Mystères de Paris (10 vols., 1842-1843) - Eugène Sue

2005, Feb 22; 13:55 ::: Teo Macero and Bitches Brew (1969)

2005, Feb 22; 10:35 ::: Haruki Murakami

2005, Feb 21; 21:18 ::: Multimedia

2005, Feb 21; 20:55 ::: Technique index

2005, Feb 21; 20:55 ::: My Nightingale Is Singing (1984) - Astrid Lindgren

2005, Feb 20; 11:37 ::: Paul Laurenzi

2005, Feb 20; 11:37 ::: Another friendly comment

2005, Feb 20; 09:35 ::: Thanks for the link, Nova!

2005, Feb 19; 23:42 ::: An index of horror [...]

2005, Feb 19; 22:26 ::: Day and night themes

2005, Feb 19; 20:45 ::: Galeries St. Hubert (1846), Brussels

2005, Feb 19; 20:18 ::: Juxtaposition

2005, Feb 19; 18:01 ::: Walter Benjamin on Céline

2005, Feb 18; 19:14 ::: Arcades Project (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin

2005, Feb 18; 16:25 ::: Commonplace

2005, Feb 18; 16:21 ::: Genre [...]

2005, Feb 18; 13:42 ::: Buttocks [...]

2005, Feb 18; 12:46 ::: A Child Is Being Beaten - (1919) - Sigmund Freud

2005, Feb 18; 12:20 ::: Art for art's sake

2005, Feb 18; 11:16 ::: Push, Push In The Bush (1978) - Musique

2005, Feb 18; 10:50 ::: Degeneration (1892) - Max Simon Nordau

2005, Feb 17; 17:29 ::: Ecorché I (1939-1940) - Ferdinand Springer

2005, Feb 17; 15:44 ::: Mandarijnen op Zwavelzuur (1963) Willem Frederik Hermans

2005, Feb 17; 15:01 ::: De boekenpoeper: Het groteske in de literatuur (1982) - Maarten van Buuren

2005, Feb 17; 15:01 ::: Roman Cieslewicz (1930-1996)

2005, Feb 17; 12:12 ::: The Marquis De Sade: A New Biography (1992) - Donald Thomas

2005, Feb 17; 01:27 ::: Frank R. Paul

2005, Feb 16; 13:12 ::: Neoclassicism

2005, Feb 16; 13:12 ::: De Roma instaurata (Rome Restored) (1444-1446) Biondo Flavio

2005, Feb 16; 13:12 ::: Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 - 1778)

2005, Feb 16; 13:12 ::: The Grotesque (1972) - Philip John Thomson

2005, Feb 15; 22:45 ::: Language index [...]

2005, Feb 15; 20:46 ::: Thesaurus [...]

2005, Feb 15; 11:12 ::: Retiary organisation

2005, Feb 15; 10:17 ::: Welcome to Sarajevo (1997) - Michael Winterbottom

2005, Feb 16; 09:25 ::: Dennis Cooper

2005, Feb 16; 09:25 ::: Sex index

2005, Feb 15; 12:08 ::: Our Right to Drugs: The Case for a Free Market (1992) - Thomas Stephen Szasz

2005, Feb 15; 11:48 ::: Is Love a Form of Mental Illness?

2005, Feb 15; 11:30 ::: Drugs

2005, Feb 15; 09:51 ::: Drug lit

2005, Feb 15; 09:22 ::: Transgressional fiction

2005, Feb 13; 00:35 ::: Jack London : Novels and Stories : Call of the Wild / White Fang / The Sea-Wolf / Klondike and Other Stories () - Jack London

2005, Feb 13; 00:08 ::: Diary of a Drug Fiend (1922)- Aleister Crowley

2005, Feb 14; 22:53 ::: Rationalism