[<<] June 2005 blog (10) [>>]
art - erotica - fiction - film - gallery - history - home - index - lifestyle - links - music - search - theory
"Method of this work:
literary montage.
I have nothing to say only to show."
(Passagenwerk (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin)
2005, Jun 26; 16:49 ::: Addams Family
Addams Family tv-series: Matte painting with title credits
image sourced here. [Jun 2005]
Morticia and Gomez from the Addams Family tv-series
The Addams Family is the creation of American cartoonist Charles Addams. They are a bizarre family who delight in all things macabre and are never really aware of why people find them frightening.
Addams's cartoons in The New Yorker magazine gained popularity in the 1930s. Addams was noted for his morbid sense of humor, and over the years various bizarre people and creatures who lived in a huge decaying Victorian Gothic house became recurring characters. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Addams_Family [jun 2005]
In the 1960s a network television series was spawned with actors playing characters from Addams cartoons, entitled The Addams Family. The television show originally ran from 1964 to 1966 on the ABC Network, and has been widely syndicated. The Munsters, which shared a similar gothic look but featured broader humor, was contemporary with The Addams Family. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Addams_Family#Television_and_film [jun 2005]
I loved the show as a kid, and still find it funny today! I do love how the movies have taken the very hush-hush innuendo of the show and brought the full S&M implications of Gomez and Morticia's sex life into full view! "To pleasure! To pain!" "Tonight...." --http://www.jumptheshark.com/a/addamsfamily.htm [Jun 2005]
Charles Addams
Charles Samuel Addams (January 7, 1912 - September 28, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters. His cartoons regularly appeared in The New Yorker from 1938 until his death. Some of the recurring characters became the basis for a television series, The Addams Family, and later a motion picture of the same name. It is said that the exterior of the Addams Family Mansion was based on the rear facade of College Hall at the University of Pennsylvania, which he attended in the 1930s. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Addams [Jun 2005]see also: gothic - black humour
2005, Jun 26; 16:24 ::: Argosy magazine
Argosy magazine, June 6, 1937
image sourced here. [Jun 2005]Argosy Magazine is an American pulp magazine. Argosy is considered to be the first pulp magazine. It began as a general info magazine (Golden Argosy) in 1882. It began to publish fiction and eventually published its first all fiction issue in 1896. It thereafter was largely a fully fiction magazine and continued to publish until ceasing publication well into the 20th century. During its run, it published work in a number of literary genres; towards the end of its run, it became associated with the men's adventure pulp genre of "true" stories of conflict with wild animals or wartime combat, and later was considered a softcore men's magazine.
Other magazines have used the title since the original folded, the latest edited by Lou Anders and producing its first issue in 2003. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argosy_Magazine [Jun 2005]
see also: adventure - pulp - fiction - escapism - exploitation - sensationalism
2005, Jun 26; 15:59 ::: Pulp and exploitationWhat is pulp?
Pulp arose from pulp fiction magazines (that is, magazines that carried short stories and that were printed on cheap pulp paper) of the early 20th century. Pulp offered adventure and horror stories of romance and intrigue, thrills and chills, often set in exotic locations and featuring near-superhuman heroes and villains, such as the Shadow and Doc Savage, altho pulps also covered science fiction, romance, sports stories, war, and (longest lasting of all) westerns.Pulp fiction gave rise to both exploitation fiction and comic books and influenced early cinema, especially gangster and western films. Pulp asks its audience to suspend their disbelief a little more to include truth serums, laser blasters, copious sprays of bullets, and gravity-defying stuntwork.
The Star Wars and Indiana Jones films are new versions of pulp adventure, and other films directly remade pulp heroes like The Phantom, The Saint, Zorro, and The Shadow. And of course, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction re-explored the world of the crime pulps with elements of 70s exploitation. In fact, Tarantino's other movies (Resevoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill) also straddle the pulp and exploitation genres, with heavy influence from the pulpier side of Asian cinema, such as kung fu and "gun fu" (Chinese) and samurai (Japanese) films.
What is exploitation?
Exploitation novels and magazines grew out of pulp fiction. They were popular "trash fiction" in the 1950s and 60s and evolved into "true crime" magazines in the 70s. The stories exploited violence, drugs, and sex, especially promiscuity and lesbianism, but rarely delivered the kind of salacious detail their cover art implied (and usually included a moralistic ending).Exploitation fiction led to exploitation cinema in the 60 and 70s, which typically featured posters and trailers that boasted about wild teenagers, drug parties, casual crime, cheap sex, and other salacious subjects.
Sexploitation cinema quickly followed, typified by Russ Meyer films like Wild Gals of the Naked West and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! This in turn led to blaxploitation cinema, such as Blackula, Foxy Brown, and Shaft, which combined sex, violence, and drugs with black urban life. --http://www.tysto.com/articles04/q2/20040504pulp.shtml [Jun 2005]
see also: pulp - trash - escapism - exploitation - sexploitation - sensationalism
2005, Jun 26; 15:29 ::: Pulp erotica
image sourced here. [Jun 2005]Half-naked damsels in distress, hard-boozing gumshoes, lust-crazed monsters, sick-minded villains, kinky sex secrets—pulp art and fiction were the places to find what you really wanted in the 1930s and 40s. The pulp artists and writers of that era served up every sort of thrill a reader could want. You could find magazines and, later, paperbacks exploiting all your secret fascinations with sex, drugs, and violence, all painted with a lurid brush in garish colors, and all with style.
Want horror, science fiction, crime, adventure, war, westerns? They each had their own magazine titles. Want tales of drugs, prostitution, promiscuity, rape, lesbianism, and even incest? Paperback publishers supplied them—just never with all the dirty little details, and always with a moralistic ending.
But you want those dirty little details, don't you? Venture on, dear reader! In these pages you will find the erotic release you're looking for.... --http://pulperotica.com [Jun 2005]
see also: pulperotica.com Google gallery
see also: pulp - erotica - escapism - exploitation - sensationalism
2005, Jun 26; 11:29 ::: Pulp of the day
November 1965, MAN'S STORY
image sourced here. [Jun 2005]
see also: http://www.pulpoftheday.com [Jun 2005]
see also: pulpoftheday Google gallery
see also: pulp - men - escapism - sensationalism
2005, Jun 25; 23:33 ::: Anthologie de l'Humour Noir (1940) - André Breton
Anthology of Black Humor (1940) - André Breton [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
"L'humour Noir" is one of the seminal concepts of Surrealism, and Breton's famous anthology is his definitive statement on the subject. It contains provocative assessments of the writers he most admired. Some, such as Kafka, Swift, Rimbaud, Poe, Lewis Carroll and Baudelaire, are well known, but other names will come as a revelation to many - as will the passages Breton includes by writers you thought you knew. Breton's original foreword, considered to be one of his most important theoretical essays, is included, along with his preface to the 1966 edition. For each of the 45 authors included, Breton writes a biographical and critical preface, placing their work in the context of black humour, which, as readers will discover for themselves, is a partly macabre, partly ironic, and often absurd turn of spirit that Breton defined as "a superior revolt of the mind." Baker&Taylor
featured authors:
--http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/cgi-bin/booksea.cgi?ISBN=0872863212 [Jun 2005]
- Jonathan Swift
- D.-A.-F.de Sade
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
- Charles Fourier
- Thomas De Quincey
- Pierre-Francois Lacenaire
- Christian Dietrich Grabbe
- Petrus Borel
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Xavier Forneret
- Charles Baudelaire
- Lewis Carroll
- Villiers de l'Isle-Adam
- Charles Cros
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Isidore Ducasse (Comte de Lautreamont)
- Joris-Karl Huysmans
- Tristan Corbiere
- Germain Nouveau
- Arthur Rimbaud
- Alphonse Allais
- Jean-Pierre Brisset
- O. Henry
- Andre Gide
- John Millington Synge
- Alfred Jarry
- Raymond Roussel
- Francis Picabia
- Guillaume Apollinaire
- Pablo Picasso
- Arthur Cravan
- Franz Kafka
- Jakob van Hoddis
- Marcel Duchamp
- Hans Arp
- Alberto Savinio
- Jacques Vache
- Benjamin Peret
- Jacques Rigaut
- Jacques Prevert
- Salvador Dali
- Jean Ferry
- Leonora Carrington
- Gisele Prassinos
- Jean-Pierre Duprey
Black comedy, also known as black humor, is a subgenre of comedy and satire where topics and events normally treated seriously – death, mass murder, sickness, madness, terror, drug abuse, et cetera – are treated in a humorous or satirical manner.
Black humor is similar to sick humor, such as dead baby jokes. However, in sick humor most of the humor comes from shock and revulsion; black humor usually includes an element of irony, or even fatalism.
In America, black comedy as a literary genre came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Writers such as Terry Southern, Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut and others published novels and stories where profound or horrific events were portrayed in a comic manner. An anthology edited by Bruce Jay Friedman, titled "Black Humor," assembles many examples of the genre.
For example, the film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb presents one of the finest examples of black comedy. The subject of the film is nuclear war and the extinction of life on Earth. Normally, dramas about nuclear war treat the subject with gravity and seriousness, creating suspense over the efforts to avoid a nuclear war. But Dr. Strangelove plays the subject for laughs; for example, in the film, the fail-safe procedures designed to prevent a nuclear war are precisely the systems that ensure that it will happen.
A scene in Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot is a good example of black comedy: A man takes off his belt to hang himself, and his trousers fall down. The cartoons of Charles Addams typically display black humour, by mixing humor with scenes that would normally be considered macabre or horrific. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_comedy [Jun 2005]
Gallows humor
Gallows humor is humor that makes light of death or other serious matters. It is similar to black comedy but differs in that it is made by the person affected. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallows_humor [Jun 2005]see also: André Breton - black comedy - 1940
2005, Jun 25; 01:14 ::: Champavert : Contes immoraux (1833) - Pétrus Borel
Champavert : Contes immoraux (1833) - Pétrus Borel [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Petrus Borel, sometimes known as Borel d'Hauterive (26 June 1809 - 14 July 1859) was a French writer of the Romantic movement.
Born Joseph-Pierre Borel at Lyons, the 12 of 14 children of an ironmonger, he studed architecture in Paris but abandoned it for literature. Nicknamed le Lycanthrope ("wolfman"), and the center of the circle of Bohemians in Paris, he was noted for extravagant and eccentric writing, foreshadowing Surrealism. He was not commercially successful though, and eventually was found a minor civil service post by his friends, including Theophile Gautier.
He died at Mostaganem in Algeria. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrus_Borel [Jun 2005]
cover is a painting by Louis Janmot (1814-1892): Poem of the Soul, Nightmare (1854)
see also: Immoral Tales
2005, Jun 25; 00:35 ::: Exotique
The Complete Reprint of Exotique: The First 36 Issues, 1951-1957 (2003) - Arthur C. Danto [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Book cover for "The Complete Reprint of Exotique: The First 36 Issues, 1951-1957"
The fetish background is evident in the cover to ‘Captive in Lace' from Exotique. Note the corsets, gloves and extreme high heels. Also note the suggestively spread legs of the woman.
Exotique magazine was published by Leonard Burtman in New York City between 1955 and 1959. Gene Bilbrew, also known by his pseudonym ENEG, was an artist who contributed work to Burtman's publications but was not the publisher. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotique_%28fetish_magazine%29 [Jun 2005]
see also: Gene Bilbrew - exotica
2005, Jun 24; 23:53 ::: Buggery Act 1533The Buggery Act was adopted in England in 1533 during the reign of Henry VIII, and was the first legislation against homosexuals in the country. (See also sodomy law.) It was also one of the first anti-sodomy laws passed by any Germanic country. All Germanic codes up to this time ignored sexual acts except adultery and rape. The Buggery Act was piloted through Parliament by Thomas Cromwell. The Act made buggery with man or beast punishable by hanging, a penalty not finally lifted until 1861. Some have suggested that zoophilia was specifically included because of the fear of hybrid births.
It is sometimes suggested that the Act was introduced as a measure against the clergy, since the Act was introduced following the separation of the Church of England from Rome, though there seems to be no firm evidence for this. The Act itself only states that there was no "sufficient and condigne punyshment" for such acts.
Contravention of the Act, along with treason, led Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford, to become the first person executed under the statute in July 1540, though it was probably the treason that cost him his life. Nicholas Udall, a cleric, playwright, and Headmaster of Eton College, was the first to be charged for violation of the Act alone - and probably in a politically-motivated case - in 1541. In his case the sentence was commuted to imprisonment, and he was released in less than a year. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggery_Act [Jun 2005]
see also: homosexuality - hybrid - law - sodomy - Sodom
2005, Jun 24; 16:43 ::: Criminal Law Amendment Act and gross indecencyIn 1860s [United Kingdom], the age of consent was twelve years old. Some people such as Josephine Butler and Barbara Bodichon were concerned that young girls were being sold to brothels. They became involved in the campaign against the white slave trade and in 1875 the House of Commons agreed to raise the age of consent to thirteen.
Campaigners were not satisfied with this change and continued to argue for further reform. In 1885 William Stead and Bramwell Booth of the Salvation Army joined forces to expose what they believed was an increase in child prostitution. In July 1885, Stead purchased Eliza Armstrong, a thirteen year-old daughter of a chimney-sweep, to show how easy it was to procure young girls for prostitution. Stead published an account of his investigations in the Pall Mall Gazette entitled Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.
In September, William Stead and five others were charged with unlawfully kidnapping a minor and committed for trial at the Old Bailey. Stead was found guilty and was imprisoned for three months in Holloway Gaol. As a result of the publicity that the Armstrong case generated, Parliament in 1885 passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act that raised the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen, strengthened existing legislation against prostitution and proscribed all homosexual relations. --http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Lconsent.htm [Jun 2005]
Gross indecency
Oscar Wilde was charged with "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" under Section 11 of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act, this being little more than a euphemism for any homosexual act, public or private. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde#Imprisonment_in_Reading_jail [Jan 2005]Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and short story writer. One of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day, known for his barbed and clever wit, he suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned after being convicted in a famous trial of "gross indecency" for his homosexuality. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde [Jun 2005]
see also: white slave - homosexuality - law - Oscar Wilde - public - private - decency - sodomy
2005, Jun 24; 16:25 ::: White slave tradeThe term the white slave trade was first used in the 1830s and referred to female prostitution. Some national figures such as Josephine Butler, Catherine Booth and William Stead, thought the government should take action to reduce prostitution in Britain. They were particularly concerned with the issue of child prostitution and called for an increase in the age of consent from twelve to sixteen. In 1875 the campaigners had their first success when the House of Commons agreed to raise the age of consent to thirteen.
In 1885 William Stead and Bramwell Booth of the Salvation Army joined forces to expose the growth in child prostitution. In July 1885, Stead purchased for £5, Eliza Armstrong, a thirteen year-old daughter of a chimney-sweep, to show how easy it was to procure young girls for prostitution. Stead published an account of his investigations in the Pall Mall Gazette entitled Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.
In September, William Stead and five others were charged with unlawfully kidnapping a minor and committed for trial at the Old Bailey. Stead was found guilty and was imprisoned for three months in Holloway Gaol. As a result of the publicity that the Armstrong case generated, Parliament in 1885 passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act that raised the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen, strengthened existing legislation against prostitution and proscribed all homosexual relations. --http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REwhite.htm [Jun 2005]
see also: white slave
2005, Jun 24; 11:50 ::: Music of Detroit
Cloud Nine (1969) - The Temptations [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Detroit is renowned for its musical heritage, a long and rich history that includes Motown Records, which produced such hometown stars as Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross & The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, the Temptations and the Four Tops. Detroit is also often regarded as the quintessential Rock 'n Roll town. The area's famously avid rock fans have been celebrated in film and in song (e.g., Kiss' "Detroit Rock City"), and bands undertaking live albums often opt to record in front of Detroit's dependably enthusiastic crowds.
Detroit's influence on popular music cannot be overstated. Contemporary pop artists such as Eminem, Kid Rock and the White Stripes are part of a long lineage of Detroit stars that includes Aretha Franklin, Madonna, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, George Clinton and Mitch Ryder. The MC5 is often credited for laying the foundation of heavy metal, the Stooges are considered the godfathers of punk rock, and Detroit was the birthplace of techno music in the mid-1980s. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Detroit [Jun 2005]
see also: music - Detroit - Detroit techno
2005, Jun 24; 10:49 ::: Great Deeds Against the Dead (1994) - Jake and Dinos Chapman
Great Deeds Against the Dead (1994) - Jake and Dinos Chapman
image sourced here.Jake Chapman (born 1966) and Dinos Chapman (born 1962) are brothers and British artists who work almost exclusively in collaboration with each other.
Jake was born in Cheltenham, Dinos in London. Both studied at the Royal College of Art and worked as assistants to Gilbert and George before beginning to collaborate in 1992.
The brothers have often made pieces with plastic models or fibreglass mannequins of people. An early piece consisted of eighty-three scenes of torture and disfigurement as recorded by Francisco Goya in his series of etchings, Disasters of War (a work they later returned to) rendered into small three-dimensional plastic models. One of these was later turned into a life-size work, Great Deeds Against the Dead.
The Chapman brothers continued the theme of anatomical alteration with a series of mannequins of children, sometimes fused together, with genitalia in place of facial features. These works had titles which reflected the combined humour and capacity to shock often considered so typical of the brothers' work, such as Fuckface and Two-Faced Cunt.
Hell (2000) saw a return to their earlier miniature form. It consisted of a large number of very small miniature figures of Nazis engaged in acts of torture arranged in nine glass cases laid out in the shape of a swastika.
The brothers have often been the subject of controversy. Aside from complaints on the grounds of bad taste, there were protests in 2003 when they returned to Goya's Disasters of War, directly altering a set of prints of the etchings purchased by the Chapmans by adding funny faces, an act described by some as "defacement". Ostensibly as a protest against this piece, Aaron Barschak (who later became famous for gate-crashing Prince William's 21st birthday party dressed as Osama bin Laden in a frock) threw a pot of red paint over Jake Chapman during a talk he was giving in May 2003.
The Chapmans' work often references work by earlier artists. As well as pieces based directly on Goya, much of their work has an affinity with that of Hieronymus Bosch, and they have also referenced pieces by William Blake, Auguste Rodin and Nicolas Poussin. In Ubermensch (1995), a sculpture of Stephen Hawking sat precariously on top of a cliff; this has been seen as a reference to Edwin Landseer's Monarch of the Glen.
The Chapman brothers were nominated for the Turner Prize in 2003.
On 24 May 2004, a fire in a storage warehouse destroyed many works from the Saatchi collection, including, it is believed, Hell. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_and_Dinos_Chapman [Jun 2005]
see also: art - transgression - appropriation - contemporary art - Goya
2005, Jun 24; 10:24 ::: The Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Concept of Art (2003) - Arthur C. Danto
The Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Concept of Art (2003) - Arthur C. Danto [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Danto simply and entertainingly traces the evolution of the concept of beauty over the past century and explores how it was removed from the definition of art. Beauty has come to be regarded as a serious aesthetic crime, whereas a hundred years ago it was almost unanimously considered the supreme purpose of art. Beauty is not, and should not be, the be-all and end-all of art, but it has an important place, and is not something to be avoided.
Danto draws eruditely upon the thoughts of artists and critics such as Rimbaud, Fry, Matisse, the Dadaists, Duchamp, and Greenberg, as well as on that of philosophers like Hume, Kant, and Hegel. Danto agrees with the dethroning of beauty as the essence of art, and maintains with telling examples that most art is not, in fact, beautiful. He argues, however, for the partial rehabilitation of beauty and the removal of any critical taboo against beauty. Beauty is one among the many modes through which thoughts are presented to human sensibility in art: disgust, horror, sublimity, and sexuality being among other such modes. --via the publisher
see also: Arthur C. Danto - abuse - art - beauty - concept - sensibility - aesthetics
2005, Jun 24; 00:10 ::: Beauty and the Contemporary Sublime (1999) - Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe
Beauty and the Contemporary Sublime (1999) - Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
First sentence:
"While working on this book I was often told that beauty and the sublime (despite their prior histories) are for us eighteenth-century concepts defined by..." (more)SIPs: contemporary sublime, nonrepresentational painting, pure ratio, banal sublime, surface without depth (more)
Book Description
Refuting established views, this book questions today's ideas of beauty, including those applied to contemporary art, and proposes a secular theory of beauty as being glamorous rather than good, frivolous rather than serious.see also: sublime - beauty - serious - 1700s
2005, Jun 23; 23:28 ::: Venus in exile, Venus's refugeUpon reading about Venus in Exile (2001) and The Mechanical Bride (1951), it occured to me that beauty (simple beauty, as in a beautiful woman or man, or a beautiful landscape) had to go somewhere when, during the 1900s, it was banned from the visual arts. The human need for beauty wants to be satisfied and beauty needed a new place to reside. It also needed new patrons, or sponsors as they are called today. Beauty found its new home in consumer culture and cinema, and its new sponsors in Hollywood and the marketing and advertising divisions of consumer good manufacturers.
To summarize:
If - in the 20th century - beauty was exiled from the arts, it found refuge in advertising, fashion, cinema, product design and consumer culture.see also: Venus - beauty - banned - 1900s
2005, Jun 23; 23:28 ::: Detective fiction
Gold Seal Detective magazine cover, June 1936
image sourced here. [Jun 2005]Gold Seal Detective ran for six issues, from December 1935 to June 1936. With the August issue (Volume II, number 3), the magazine was re-titled Ace Detective magazine, and ran for three issues under that title.
Although not a popular title at the time (thus its short run), Gold Seal Detective is rare today and is highly sought after.
It was published by Magazine Publishers, Inc., 29 Worthington St, Springfield, MA; a division of Ace pulps. Ace published titles in all genres, including romance and westerns. Their most popular detective pulp was Ten Detective Aces. When the pulps died out, Ace pulps became Ace paperbacks. --http://www.lifeloom.com/I2pulpcover1.htm
see also: crime fiction - bondage - detective - pulp - 1936
2005, Jun 23; 23:12 ::: Guido Crepax (1933 - 2003)
Cover of the 'nude' album of the Italian jazz group Bambi, Fossati & Arybaldi, 1970s, designed by Guido Crepax
image sourced here. [Jun 2005]see also: soundtrack - sleeve - Guido Crepax
2005, Jun 23; 22:26 ::: O (1975) - Guido Crepax
O (1975) - Guido Crepax
image sourced here [Jun 2005], click for more.Taschen print from 2000: Justine and the Story of O - Guido Crepax [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
see also: O (fictional character) - erotic comics - Guido Crepax
2005, Jun 23; 21:05 ::: Monceau Park (1878) - Claude MonetHER LOVER one day takes O for a walk in a section of the city where they never go - the Montsouris Park, the Monceau Park. After they have taken a stroll in the park and have sat together side by side on the edge of a lawn, they notice, at one corner of the park, at an intersection where there are never any taxis, a car which, because of its meter, resembles a taxi.
Monceau Park (1878) - Claude Monet
``Get in,'' he says.
She gets in. It is autumn, and coming up to dusk. She is dressed as she always is: high heels, a suit with a pleated skirt, a silk blouse, and no hat. But long gloves which come up over the sleeves of her jacket, and in her leather handbag she has her identification papers, her compact and her lipstick . . .
``Unfasten your garter belt,'' he says, ``and take off your panties.'' --Story of O by Pauline Réage
see also: O (fictional character) - Pauline Réage - Claude Monet
2005, Jun 23; 12:31 ::: Bizarre Sinema! Vol 4: Cultish Shocking Horrors (2003) - Various
Bizarre Sinema! Vol 4: Cultish Shocking Horrors (2003) - Various [Amazon.FR]
image sourced here.(Sur)realism, Sadism and Eroticism, 1950s-1960s
Edited by Stefano Piselli, Riccardo Morrocchi
Foreword by Jean-Pierre Bouyxou
Text by Carlos Aguilar, Chistophe Bier, Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, Antonio Bruschini, Pierre Charles, Gerard ManginSurrealism, sadism and eroticism in a selection of cultish shocking horror movies of the 1950s and 1960s with an unusual charm: El monstruo resucitado (The Resurrected Monster), Blood of the Vampire, Horrors of the Black Museum, Circus of Horrors, Peeping Tom, Ein Toter hing im Netz (Horrors of Spider Island), Il mulino delle donne di pietra (Mill of the Stone Women), El mundo de los vampiros (The World of the Vampires), Gritos en la noche (The Awful Dr. Orlof). From Robert S. Baker & Monty Berman to Michael Powell, from Chano Urueta to Alfonso Corona Blake, from Giorgio Ferroni to Jess Franco, from Miroslava Stern to Barbara Shelley, from Pamela Green to Barbara Valentin...
via Amazon.fr
Les éditions « Glittering Images » ont une fois de plus fait un travail remarquable. Ce nouveau livre rend un vibrant hommage à quelques perles du cinéma de quartier. L’épouvante y est à l’honneur avec des analyses très complètes de plusieurs chef-d’œuvres. Citons pour mémoire le fameux « Peeping Tom » avec un jeune Karl-Heinz Boehm inquiétant à souhait, ainsi qu’une Pamela Green délicieuse et « Le cirque des horreurs » une autre perle du cinéma d’horreur. Anton Diffring en chirurgien fou et directeur de cirque trouve là un rôle à sa mesure. D’autres films sont analysés, notamment « Crime au musée des horreurs », « Le moulin des supplices » et le déroutant « Mort dans le filet » qui combine habilement érotisme et épouvante.Le livre est trilingue (italien, anglais et français), superbement illustré par des photos en noir et blanc et en couleur. La préface est écrite par un spécialiste du genre : Jean-Pierre Bouyxou. Un livre magnifique à la hauteur des chef-d’œuvres pour une fois analysés par d’authentiques cinéphiles. --nussbaum22 via Amazon.fr
see also: Jean-Pierre Bouyxou - Peeping Tom (film) - Glittering Images
2005, Jun 23; 11:31 ::: Pamela Green
Pamela Green
image sourced here.If you were an aficionado of the female form in 1950s America, the name of Betty Page was probably at the top of your list. If you were an aficionado living in Britain, however, your list would be topped by another name - Pamela Green. While Betty Page virtually dropped from sight in 1957, after less than a decade of modeling, Pamela continued until the late 1970s, enjoying a career that spanned four decades. During this time she was the subject of what I consider to be the most striking photographs of the female nude ever done. Far from being merely "girlie pictures", these photos were elevated to a level formerly only occupied by oil paintings. Pamela worked with a number of prominent photographers and produced, like Bunny Yeager in America, a great deal of her own work. She combined the skills of a dancer, painter and model with her God-given beauty and created a vast body of work that stands as an unequaled monument to taste and talent. --T.H. Pine via http://www.pamela-green.com/artofthenude.html [Jun 2005]
Kamera (magazine)
Kamera was launched in 1957. It was a pocket sized monthly publication. The models featured were hand picked by George Harrison Marks and Pamela Green, who had the uncanny knack of selecting just the right girls. Some of these girls - June Palmer, Paula Page, Lorraine Burnett, Vicky Kennedy, Marie Devereaux and Rosa Dolmai - were to become celebrities in their own right.Within two days of the launch of the first issue of Kamera, the initial 15,000 print run was sold out. A re-run led to 150,000 copies being sold in five weeks.
George's photographic mastery and Pamela's creative skills led to Kamera changing the face of glamour photography. They seemed to have a natural ability to capture the spirit of the age and, to some extent, guide it. Kamera, though titillating, was imbued with dignity and beauty. Sales of the Kamera calendars were phenomenal. George's fascination with theatre and cinema gave the photos a dramatic and live quality which set them apart from other contemporary glamour imagery. -- http://www.pamela-green.com/kamera.live [Jun 2005]
see also: pin-up - Peeping Tom (film) - UK - glamour - 1950s - 1960s
2005, Jun 21; 17:22 ::: Test
2005, Jun 21; 17:21 ::: Bay of Blood (1971) - Mario Bava
Reazione a catena / Bay of Blood (1971) - Mario Bava [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Amazon.com
This late entry in Italian horror auteur Mario Bava's catalog is in keeping with much of his other work: a rather murky plot, inventive camera work and editing, gauzy lighting using red and blue gels, and an atmospheric, dreamlike feel throughout. Where it parts ways with many of his films is in the high body count--so high that many feel Bay of Blood was a likely influence on American slasher films such as Friday the l3th. The killing centers on a list of potential heirs to a piece of lakefront property ripe for development (a subplot involves camping teenagers who are also being slaughtered--sound familiar?). The slayings come fast and furious, with gunshots, chokings, stabbings, decapitations, and a two-for-the-price-of-one impalement, to name a few. Bava creates an off-kilter mood of melancholia for the film that makes it somewhat less fun than the mindless slasher flicks of the 1980s, but also renders it a more thought-provoking, cynical sort of movie. --Jerry Renshawsee also: slasher - film - Mario Bava - 1971 - Italian horror - blood
blog archive - previous blog - other blogs and sites