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"Method of this work:
literary montage.
I have nothing to say only to show."
(Passagenwerk (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin)
2005, May 29; 21:13 ::: Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood (2004) - Claire Wilcox [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Harlequin from Vivienne Westwood's "Voyage to Cythera Autumn / Winter 1989-90" collection "Vivienne Westwood"
image sourced here.
Vivienne Westwood's shop "SEX", 1974
image sourced here.Vivienne Westwood began designing in 1971, when she and Malcolm McLaren opened their shop at 430 King's Road, the so called "wrong end" of the otherwise prosperous London street, which eventually came to be called "World's End."
But Westwood and McLaren claimed the location as their own with their chameleon like boutique, which changed names and decor every time the larger-than-life duo had a new idea. In it's first incarnation, in '71, it was called "Let It Rock" selling '50's Rock'n'Roll records and clothing at a time when hippies were still in fashion and Rock'n'Roll was never played on British radio. In 1972, it became "Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die," offering '50's records, Zoot suits, "Rocker" clothing, zips, chains and the like. In '74 the creative team took the idea to its next level offering "SEX." The name was displayed on the front of the shop in ten foot high fluorescent pink plastic letters. The items for sale inside included leather bondage clothing, pornographic T-shirts, rubberwear and T-shirts with zips, holes and seditionist slogans.
SEX coincided with, and in fact, helped to shape, the emerging lifestyle, music style and fashion style which later became known as Punk, and it was during this time that McLaren decided to form the band The Sex Pistols, who were named after the shop and intended (at least in part), to serve as models for Westwood's latest creations and attract attention to the boutique.
SEX was a boutique run by Malcolm McLaren & Vivienne Westwood at 430 King's Road in London, England.
SEX was one in a series of boutiques created by Malcolm McLaren & Vivienne Westwood from 1971 to 1979. SEX was formerly known as Let It Rock, which sold Rock & Roll nostalgia pieces catering to Rockers & Teddy Boys. After returning to London after managing the New York Dolls in 1974, McLaren decided to change the whole theme of the boutique. SEX would focus on rubber clothing, bondage gear, fetish magazines & the like.
SEX would stay on the scene long enough to begin the fashion crossover into Punk, which McLaren & Westwood were knee deep in. Famously, the Sex Pistols auditioned Johnny Rotten in the shop.
SEX became Seditionaries in 1976, catering specifically to the emerging Punk scene.
SEX was unique, in that it was run by a very pioneering & successful duo, but it was by no means the only boutique of its kind on the King's Road & by the time Punk exploded onto the scene, there were plenty of competitors including; Boy, Granny Takes A Trip & Beaufort Market.
"I wanted a major, major, major change. I thought we can't keep selling these old REMNANTS and things, we've got to do something tougher and harder: it's all too sweet, and the store, for fuck's sake, is too goddam popular. So it's got to close, no question about it. No more brothel creepers, no more drainpipes, no more of this rock 'n' roll clothing and get rid of that fucking jukebox." ~Malcolm McLaren --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEX_%28boutique%29 [May 2005]
Kings Road
Kings Road is a major east-west street in London's Chelsea. During the hippie and punk eras, it was a major centre for the counterculture, but is now gentrified. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_Road [May 2005]
'Destroy' T-shirt - Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood
image sourced here.'Destroy' T-shirt
This picture shows Vivienne Westwood in 1977 wearing a 'Destroy' muslin T-shirt. It is formed from two squares of fabric with elongated, straitjacket-like sleeves caught back with D-rings, evoking a straitjacket and printed with the word 'destroy' and a swastika. Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren used highly charged slogans and provocative images in a deliberate attempt to provoke the establishment. The muslins quickly became tattered, only adding to their appeal.see also: Vivienne Westwood - fashion
2005, May 29; 16:24 ::: Antwerp, Belgium
view of the Schelde
image sourced here. [May 2005]Antwerpen is a great city, much better than Brussels. Crossing the city on foot, you start by the river (Antwerpen is among Europe's biggest ports) and on your way to a small bar you pass:
- a surprising multitude of sex shops, from the trendy feminine/woman-friendly brightly-lit and colourful variety, to the ominous "Toys 4 Boys" and its display of leather masks;
- innumerable little shops sporting the latest in interior design (the city has been an emerging European fashion centre since the early '90s and the people here tend to be a step ahead, IMO);
- old brick houses, one displaying a "Anno 1515" plaque;
- an open space surround by brick walls that have been taken over by the brightly-coloured fantasies and harrowing psycho-dramas of graffiti artists; [Muntplein]
- churches;
- the statue of Brabo throwing the evil giant's hand (hence the city's name: hand-throwing);
- weird little odds and ends.
And the whole time, there is no loss of continuity in the mix of residential, cultural, sexual, social and religious spaces. --http://be-jazz.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_be-jazz_archive.html#111555366906025291 [May 2005]
Brabo fountain (1887) - Jef Lambeaux
image sourced here. [May 2005]Brabofontein
De Brabofontein werd op de Grote Markt in Antwerpen onthuld op 81 augustus 1887. Dit werk van Jef Lambeaux (Antwerpen 1852 - Brussel 1908) wordt gedomineerd door de soepele en gracieuze figuur van de held die hoog oprijst boven een groot aantal dooreengestrengelde figuren; het onthoofde lichaam van de reus, watermonsters, schildpad en alligator, en sirenen met de symbolen van de stad.Dit meesterwerk van de beeldhouwer is een pareltje van de barok, dat nauw aansluit bij de grote traditie van de eeuw van Rubens en Jordaens. Reeds tijdens zijn leven was Lambeau: een zeer omstreden kunstenaar ; sommigen nemen aanstoot aan zijn gewaagde sensualiteit, vooral dan in zijn groot reliëf «De Passies van de Mens», dat van het einde van de eeuw dateert, anderen daarentegen zijn vol lof over zijn expressieve kracht. De rijzige figuur van Brabo sluit aan bij de stijl die teruggaat tot Jean de Bologne, een in Vlaanderen geboren beeldhouwer, een meester van de Italiaanse beeldhouwkunst uit de XVIe eeuw.
Door haar dynamisme is zij een voorbode van de moderne kunst. Brons. Antwerpen, Grote Markt. (Teksten van de Dienst voor Toerisme van Antwerpen en Dhr. Roberts-Jones «Secrétaire perpétuel de l’Académie de, Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique».) --http://www.philatelia.be/catalog/ViewPZ.ASP?PZS_ID=927 [May 2005]
2005, May 29; 14:55 ::: Cool jazzCool jazz is a type of jazz that is understated and subtle, and integrates elements of classical music. It is sometimes referred to as West Coast jazz or West Coast cool, as it was primarily practiced by musicians in the Los Angeles area; however, its popularity and practice was by no means limited to California. The Claude Thornhill Orchestra and Lennie Tristano first recorded cool jazz in the late 1940s. Thornhill's most popular song "Snowfall" is still played today.
Along with the bebop movement developed during the 1940s, the 1950s ushered in a lighter, more romantic style of jazz called "cool." Developed mainly from the perspective of white West Coast jazz musicians, cool jazz combined the melodic and swinging aspects of the earlier swing era with the harmonic and rhythmic developments of bebop. The roots of cool jazz can be traced back to various earlier styles, as well as a direction that trumpet player Miles Davis pursued during the late 1940s. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_jazz [May 2005]
Miles Davis
Miles Davis (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991), one of the most influential and innovative musicians of the twentieth century, was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer.Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development of jazz after the Second World War. He played on some of the important early bebop records, the first cool jazz records were recorded under his name, he was largely responsible for the development of modal jazz, and jazz fusion arose from Davis's bands of the late sixties and early seventies and the musicians who worked with him. Free jazz was the only postwar style hardly affected by Davis, although some musicians from his bands later pursued this style. His recordings, along with the live performances of his many influential bands, were vital in jazz's increased acceptance as music with lasting artistic value. A popularizer as well as an innovator, Davis became famous for both his languid, melodic style and his laconic and at times confrontational personality. As an increasingly well-paid and fashionably-dressed jazz musician, Davis was also a symbol of the music's commercial potential.
Davis was in a line of jazz trumpeters that started with Buddy Bolden and ran through Joe "King" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, and Dizzy Gillespie. He has been compared to Duke Ellington as a musical innovator: both were skillful players on their instruments but were not considered technical virtuosos. Ellington's main strength was as a composer and leader of a large band, while Davis had a talent for drawing together talented musicians in small groups and allowing them space to develop. Most of the major figures in postwar jazz played in one of Davis's groups at some point in their career. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Davis [May 2005]
Birth of the Cool
Birth of the Cool is an LP released in 1957 by Capitol Records in the USA, collecting eleven of the twelve sides recorded by the nonet featuring Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan and others in 1949 and 1950. Gil Evans, although he contributed one chart to the sessions acted as eminence grise to a group of musicians who had met in his small New York apartment above a Chinese laundry. The group performed live only briefly at the Royal Roost Club in New York.The LP is considered seminal because it launched a reaction to the prominent bebop form in modern jazz. Though the break can be exaggerated (Charlie Parker participated in the discussions Evans led) it inspired a whole school of jazz musicians, particularly in California, usually referred to as the cool school. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_of_the_Cool [May 2005]
inspired by Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude (2000) - Dick Pountain, David Robins [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
2005, May 29; 13:18 ::: Mark Stewart
Soul Jazz presents: Kiss the Future (2005) - Mark Stewart [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The end of the month (31 May) sees the release of Mark Stewart – Kiss The Future.
Mark Stewart, the man behind the legendary Pop Group, The Maffia and much more has compiled this album of his material. Ranging from the start of his career in The Pop Group (aged 16!) with tracks such as 'We Are All Prostitutes', 'She Is Beyond Good And Evil' through the 1980s with the epic 'Jerusalem' and classic cuts such as 'Hypnotized' right through to his current material with new tracks such as 'Radio Freedom', a collaboration with The Bug the CD and LP both come with a limited edition set of postcard graphics, designed by the man himself. Kiss The Future coincides with Mark Stewart headlining both All Tomorrows Parties at SEI, London on Thurs June 2nd and the VENN festival in Bristol on Fri June 3rd. --pHinn via http://phinnweb.blogspot.com/2005/05/mark-stewart-kiss-future-compilation.html [May 2005]The Pop Group
The Pop Group were a post punk band from Bristol, United Kingdom whose uncompromising, dissonant sound spanned punk, free jazz and dub reggae. Their lyrics were, more often than not, political in nature.Formed in 1978 by Mark Stewart (lyrics, vocals), Jon Waddington (guitar), Gareth Sager (guitar), Simon Underwood (bass) and Bruce Smith (drums, percussion), they issued their debut single, She is Beyond Good and Evil on the 'Radar' label the following year.
Their debut album Y, was one of the earliest touchstones of the emerging post-punk sound. Produced by reggae veteran Dennis Bovell, the record is still cited today as one of the best of the era, although it is, at the time of writing, along with the rest of their discography, sadly out of print.
Although it did not chart, the album's success was sufficient to convince Rough Trade to sign the band, but not before more line-up changes, with Dan Katsis replacing Underwood on bass, and Tristan Honsinger joining on cello.
The band's career with Rough Trade commenced with what is possibly their best-known single, the angry 'We Are All Prostitutes', which preceded the release of their second album, For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? in 1980.
The band split in 1981, after legal wranglings and internal squabblings ingulfed them somewhat, but that was not the end of their members' involvement in the music scene, with ex-members going on to form bands like Pigbag, Maximum Joy and Rip,Rig & Panic, the latter notable for the involvement of a young Neneh Cherry.
Singer Mark Stewart, meanwhile, collaborated with the On-U Sound [Adrian Sherwood] posse, issuing records firstly as Mark Stewart and the Mafia, then as a solo artist.
The Pop Group are often credited with founding the Bristol scene that would later spawn trip-hop. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pop_Group [May 2005]
2005, May 29; 12:39 ::: Cérémonie d'amour / Love Rites (1988) - Walerian Borowczyk
Cérémonie d'amour, Love Rites (1988) - Walerian Borowczyk [Amazon UK]
see also: Walerian Borowczyk
2005, May 29; 12:12 ::: Sandra Julien (1950 - )
Sandra Julien in Je suis une nymphomane (1970) - Max Pécas [Amazon UK]
Sandra Julien in The Shiver of the Vampire (1970) - Jean Rollin
image sourced here. [May 2005]When it was released in 1970, Jean Rollin's third feature film, The Shiver of the Vampires (original title Le frisson des vampires), was Rollin's most successful film to date. It was even released in the UK, retitled Sex and the Vampire and minus about 18 minutes. It tells the story of a newlywed couple who stop at a castle to visit the childhood friends of the wife. However, the castle's inhabitants emerge as hippie vampires who take an instant liking to the wife (the strikingly beautiful Sandra Julien). Progressive rock music by a band named Acanthus forms the backdrop as the husband watches his wife become further and further entrenched in the vampires' plans.
Unfortunately, however, The Shiver of the Vampires contains some of the most banal imagery in the Rollin catalog. Virtually all the scenes are brightly lit, destroying any potential for an eerie atmosphere. Even the much ballyhooed scene where a female vampire emerges from a grandfather clock is clumsy and ludicrous. Vampire movies traditionally avoid showing vampires rise from coffins--because the sight of a vampire scrambling to its feet tends to negate the creature's supernatural allure (so some movies give us vampires who swing up from their coffins as if spring-loaded and hinged at their feet). The sight of the female vampire awkwardly swinging her shoulders out of the clock's interior creates the same problem as vampires faced with coffins. --http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue09/reviews/jeanrollin/shiver.htm [May 2005]
see also: Sandra Julien
2005, May 29; 00:53 ::: Gallery
image sourced here. [May 2005]
image sourced here. [May 2005]search phrase: ero guro at google
check the rest of http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~ero.guro/c.html [May 2005]
2005, May 28; 23:47 ::: Teruo Ishii
Attack from Space (1957) - Teruo Ishii Belgium
image sourced here. [May 2005]More vital than most men half his age, eighty-year-old Teruo Ishii continues to make films that witness their creator's colourful personality. Still best known for his series of Edo-era torture films from the late 60s, Ishii has worked in a vast range of genres in the course of his six-decade long career. From his early Super Giants films for Shin Toho, through his gang and biker films for Toei and his recent independently made ero-gro spectacles, his work has remained as youthful in spirit as the man who made them. Midnight Eye met up with Ishii at the Étrange Festival in Paris, which paid tribute to the man who is referred to at home as the King of Cult. --http://www.hkmania.com/Dossiers/teruoishii-en.html [May 2005]
Teruo Ishii (born in Tokyo in 1924) is one of the greatest film-makers in the Japanese exploitation cinema. He dropped out university to become an assistant cameraman at the Toho where he had the opportunity to work with the great Mikio Naruse, whom he still mentions today as his mentor. In 1947, he became assistant director on going to the recently created Shin Toho, and directed his first film in 1957. He filmed the series devoted to "Super Giant" (the Japanese Superman) and from 1958 to 1961 shot a series of detective stories in which the common denominator is the Japanese word "Chitai" ("zone", "frontier", "boundary limit") in the title. He then moved to the Toei at the right time : when the firm was looking form film-makers to direct films about yakuzas. It was at that time he won his stripes by giving the starring role to Ken Takakura in "Abashiri Prison" (1965), the first step in one of the most popular series of all time in Japan. Up until 1968 Ishii shot the first nine episodes.
He then moved to the Ero-Guro genre (eroto-grotesque) with such works as The Joy of Torture (1968) and "Hell's Tattooers" (1969). Towards the mid-seventies, he directed one of the episodes of the "Streetfighter" series with Sonny Chiba and inaugurated a series of films devoted to "bosokuzu" (biker gangs). He stopped his career in 1979 but made his come-back in 1998 with his adaptation of Tsuge's avant-garde manga, "Nejishiki". In 1999, he directed a remake of "Hell", Nobuo Nakagawa's masterpiece, using the Aum sect as its framework. He recently directed, totally independently, "Moju Tai Issunboshi" (literally the blind beast against the dwarf), a proclaimed homage to Edogawa Rampo. (Edgar Allan Poe) --http://www.hkmania.com/Dossiers/teruoishii-en.html [May 2005]
“Surely there are limits, but within these limits one can do whatever he pleases,” said specialist Kato Akira about the roman porno genre. The same can be said about those hybrids in which submission and bondage give way to sheer violence and torture: thus, the jidai-geki (period films) produced by Toei and set during the Tokugawa dynasty can be considered a peculiar form of splatter movie. It is mainly due to these ero-guro (erotic-grotesque) flicks – precisely, the so-called Joys of Torture series – that the name Ishii Teruo is not new to Japanese cinema devotees, with such titles as Tokugawa Onna Keibatsushi (Tokugawa History of Women Punishment a.k.a. Criminal Women, 1968) and Tokugawa Irezumi Shi Seme Jigoku (Tokugawa Tattoo History: Torture Hell, 1969). Some will also remember his early sci-fi movies, such as the Super Giants series in the late Fifties. But, actually, Ishii’s body of work has been largely overlooked by Western critics, partly due to the scarce availability of his films outside of Japan, partly because Ishii himself was considered a minor, if not forgettable, director. --Roberto Curti, http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen/ishii_teruo.html [May 2003|May 2005]
Toei and "Pinky Violence"
The enormous success of pink eiga didn’t go unnoticed by the major film studios. They started to produce their own sexploitation films. Toei began its so-called ”Pinky Violence” films in 1971 with a series of bad girl movies, and in the same year Nikkatsu launched its production of so-called Roman Porno. With the establishment of the subsidiary company Tokatsu, even the family-oriented Shochiku studios joined the ranks of pink eiga producers. Toho remained the only studio that didn’t venture into the sexploitation market. --Roland Domenig, http://194.21.179.166/cecudine/fe_2002/eng/PinkEiga2002.htm [Aug 2004]
image sourced here. [May 2005]If you were single, urban, and male during the late sixties and early seventies, then Toei studios wanted dearly, desperately to be your best friend.
All for you, legendary Toei producer Kanji Amao created the Shigeki rosen (Sensational Line), the Ijoseiai rosen (Abnormal Line), and the Harenchi rosen (Shameless Line).
Individually and collectively, they were wild-sex, and sometimes sex-and-violence, films designed to play on the bottom half of double features featuring yakuza films in the top slot. And while Takakura Ken might extol the virtues of honor and humanity in the main feature, bath house geisha with fabulously talented lower regions (the Onsen Geisha series), sexually perverted Tokugawa retainers (the Tokugawa Onna series), or impossibly tough female gangs (the Sukeban series) would wreck havoc in the B-feature. --http://www.pulp-mag.com/books/tokyoscope/pinky.shtml [May 2005]
see also: Japanese cinema - violent film
2005, May 28; 22:47 ::: Sherlock Holmes and cocaineSir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes was a recreational cocaine user, which in the early stories was treated as an eccentricity rather as pipe smoking would be thought of today. His drug use in popular fiction reflected the mood of the times as it increasingly became disapproved of (usually by Doctor Watson) until in 1896 in "The Missing Three-Quarter"; Holmes himself described the hypodermic syringe (invented in 1843) as "an instrument of evil" (from Berridge, Edwards 1981 p.223-224). In "The Man with the Twisted Lip" 1887 Holmes disguises himself and visits a Chinese opium den in London's West End, in an attempt to save one of his bohemian friends from 'the tentacles of lady morphia'. At the time the popular press was full of stories of "evil Orientals" corrupting "innocent" white women into a life of sex and drug taking. Xenophobia was a constant feature of the way drugs were portrayed in the popular press. For a detailed account see (Kohn M, 1987) --via http://www.lifeline.org.uk/downloads/site_evaluation.pdf [May 2005]
inspired by Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude (2000) - Dick Pountain, David Robins [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
2005, May 28; 12:02 ::: Drug prevention campaignHeroin Screws You Up - The Government's Public Education Response
In 1985/6 the DHSS commissioned a series of high profile press and T.V advertisements, under the general title of 'Heroin Screws You Up'. These were judged to have been 'successful' in that according to the government's own research conducted by Andrew Irving and Associates,"(the campaign)..fostered and reinforced negative attitudes and beliefs about heroin misuse. (but in doing so)..demoralised existing users by encouraging them to (be) negative about themselves and society to be even more hostile and rejecting". (Rhodes 1990 p.16)
The campaign was heavily criticised from within the drugs field for a number of reasons. It focused solely on heroin and ignored drugs such as amphetamine. The posters which featured young people supposedly 'screwed up' would show thin young rebellious youths with 'James Dean scowls' and were reportedly used by teenage girls as pin ups. (Private correspondence with drug agency in Liverpool).
[...]
Research from America where there had been a heroin problem for much longer, pointed out some interesting paradoxes. One of the two TV adverts used in the campaign in England and Wales,'control', which featured a young actor saying that he could control his heroin use, when the viewer is lead to believe with his rapid deterioration before the camera that he obviously could not, makes the point that heroin is a difficult drug to manage. Fieldman's research which took place in 1968, in Boston and New York suggests that this is also part of its attraction.
"Status as a 'stand-up cat' had been commonly achieved through being adept at thieving and fighting, thereby facing and overcoming various challenges to one's emerging manhood. However, heroin came to be a most effective form of challenge precisely because of its fatal notoriety. Whether the 'stand-up cat' was prepared to accept the challenge, and whether he would be able to use the drug without succumbing to addiction and dependence, could be a crucial test of his manhood..'can you control it or will it control you ?'These were a much more mortal form of combat than the street fight" (Quoted in Pearson 1987 p.79)
Quite apart from the specific criticisms of the campaign, the idea of using any form of mass media campaign " ..contravened the principle that mass media should not be used for complex and sensitive issues, especially where the goal is to change behaviour" (Tones quoted in Health Education Journal No4 1986 p.223). As Nick Dorn, Research Director of The Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence (ISDD) told the 'Media Show' in March 1990, the evidence is that media campaigns are "absolutely useless in terms of reducing the level of drug consumption". (Dorn 1990). --via http://www.lifeline.org.uk/downloads/site_evaluation.pdf [May 2005]
inspired by Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude (2000) - Dick Pountain, David Robins [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
see also: drugs - advertising
2005, May 28; 11:52 ::: Bebop and cannabis"The first white teenager caught with cannabis in Britain was arrested in 1952, 'having acquired the habit through frequenting "Be-bop" clubs and cafes where addicts congregated'. Cannabis was used most amongst the jazz and folk musicians and their educated middle-class audience. The heroin users, too, were a literate bunch. Devouring De Quincey, Burroughs and others, they knew more than most doctors about the nature of addiction". (Shapiro 1988 p.106)--via http://www.lifeline.org.uk/downloads/site_evaluation.pdf [May 2005]inspired by Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude (2000) - Dick Pountain, David Robins [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
2005, May 28; 01:22 ::: Basic hip and Martin Denny
image sourced here. [May 2005]How to Speak Hip (1961) Del Close and John Brent
Basic Hip is the second cut on the first side of the legendary beatnik comedy album by John Brent and Del Close, How To Speak Hip. John Brent plays Geets Romo and Del Close is The Instructor on this recording aimed at helping the uncool break into the fascinating world of hip. "Basic Hip" has served as my moniker for several years now.
Many people have asked about the "weird guy" with the cigarette holder and mono-brow in the Basic Hip logo. He is none other than Del Close himself and the image is from the cover to the soundtrack of the musical, The Nervous Set. Larry Hagman was also part of the cast. Here is a track from that record which features Close singing How Do You Like Your Love?
Now that you know the history behind the name and who that goofy hipster is, please return to the previous page and enjoy the wonderful world of Basic Hip Digital Oddio! --http://www.basichip.com//basichip/basichip.htm [May 2005]
see also beatnik - comedy - 1961 - hip
Exotic Moog (1969) - Martin Denny
image sourced here. [May 2005]see also exotica - moog - 1969
2005, May 27; 12:57 ::: The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster (1957) - Norman Mailer
The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster (1957) - Norman Mailer [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
In the purest sense, the original hipsters were the hip, mostly black performers of jazz and swing music in the 1940s and , at a time when "hip" music was equated with African-American-originated forms of musical expression.
Although hipsters could be black or white, the term later and more predominantly came to be used to refer to whites who were aficionados of the music, groupies and members of the so-called Bohemian set, or Beat Generation. Because the jazz scene had long been integrated, hipster culture, too, became integrated before much of the rest of society. The use of the term "hipster" for whites who had an affinity for the avant-garde and for African-American culture was popularized in Norman Mailer's 1956 [1957] book The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster. Hipsters sometimes were referred to as beatniks, a combination of "beat" and "nik," a Yiddish suffix meaning "person."
Hipsters were cool. That is, they exhibited a mellow, laid-back attitude that is still called hip. Many also were users and popularizers of recreational drugs, particularly marijuana and amphetamines, but also heroin, which was popular for a time among bebop scene leaders like Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster [May 2005]
The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster (1957) - Norman Mailer
Our search for the rebels of the generation led us to the hipster. The hipster is an enfant terrible turned inside out. In character with his time, he is trying to get back at the conformists by lying low ... You can't interview a hipster because his main goal is to keep out of a society which, he thinks, is trying to make everyone over in its own image. He takes marijuana because it supplies him with experiences that can't be shared with "squares." He may affect a broad-brimmed hat or a zoot suit, but usually he prefers to skulk unmarked. The hipster may be a jazz musician; he is rarely an artist, almost never a writer. He may earn his living as a petty criminal, a hobo, a carnival roustabout or a freelance moving man in Greenwich Village, but some hipsters have found a safe refuge in the upper income brackets as television comics or movie actors. (The late James Dean, for one, was a hipster hero.) ... It is tempting to describe the hipster in psychiatric terms as infantile, but the style of his infantilism is a sign of the times. He does not try to enforce his will on others, Napoleon-fashion, but contents himself with a magical omnipotence never disproved because never tested. . . . As the only extreme nonconformist of his generation, he exercises a powerful if underground appeal for conformists, through newspaper accounts of his delinquencies, his structureless jazz, and his emotive grunt words.- "Born 1930: The Unlost Generation "
by Caroline Bird
Harper's Bazaar, Feb. 1957Probably, we will never be able to determine the psychic havoc of the concentration camps and the atom bomb upon the unconscious mind of almost everyone alive in these years. For the first time in civilized history, perhaps for the first time in all of history, we have been forced to live with the suppressed knowledge that the smallest facets of our personality or the most minor projection of our ideas, or indeed the absence of ideas and the absence of personality could mean equally well that we might still be doomed to die as a cipher in some vast statistical operation in which our teeth would be counted, and our hair would be saved, but our death itself would be unknown, unhonored, and unremarked, a death which could not follow with dignity as a possible consequence to serious actions we had chosen, but rather a death by deux ex machina in a gas chamber or a radioactive city; and so if in the midst of civilization-that civilization founded upon the Faustian urge to dominate nature by mastering time, mastering the links of social cause and effect-in the middle of an economic civilization founded upon the confidence that time could indeed be subjected to our will, our psyche was subjected itself to the intolerable anxiety that death being causeless as well, and time deprived of cause and effect had come to a stop. --http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR2/whitenegro.html [May 2005]
inspired by Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude (2000) - Dick Pountain, David Robins [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
see also: hip - hipster - cool - white - black - Norman Mailer
2005, May 27; 12:16 ::: TracTracTor (1936)
International Harvester Diesel TracTracTor (1936)
via here.International Harvester Diesel TracTracTor (1936, International Harvester Company). "...Front cover of an advertising brochure for International Harvester diesel crawler tractors (TracTracTors), featuring a tractor set against a colorful arrow design." --http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~aabb/plus9.html
2005, May 27; 09:57 ::: Queerhorror.comQueerHorror.com is a site devoted to exploring the horror genre and its inclusion of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the transgendered. It's a place where queer folk can explore their interests in, or connections with, the horror genre.
The connection between queers and horror is a very strong one. By many homophobes, we are seen as the villains in horror; corrupting families, spreading plagues and destroying the moral fabric of society. However, we know ourselves to be much more the heros in horror, trying to fight to overcome almost impossible odds while always knowing that there is an evil presence out there that wishes to destroy us, no matter what the cost.
The horror genre reflects reality better than many others do. The characters are not necessarily good and bad, and the end of the story isn't known ahead of time. The villains may triumph, or may turn out to be the heros and vice versa. An act seen as good could lead to the downfall of a character, or a character that seemed to be trustworthy could turn against you. The rules aren't written ahead of time.
GLBT folk are very familiar with horror. Whether this horror comes in the form of blame for society's woes, laws preventing us from living a normal life, rejection by family or friends for being who we are, or religiously sponsored hate crimes, no queer person is unaffected by the horrific. --http://queerhorror.com [May 2005]
see also: queer - horror - queer horror
2005, May 27; 09:42 ::: Bmovies.desubtitled: movies of mystery and imagination
An enormous amount of photos on http://www.bmovies.de
view 100s of images here.
special "Dracula" link for Curt here.
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Le Fatiche di Ercole (1958) - Pietro Francisci
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Christopher Lee in
LaFrusta e il corpo / The Whip and The Body (1963) - Mario Bava [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
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Le Frisson Des Vampires / Shiver of the Vampires (1970) - Jean Rollin [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
image sourced here.Definition of a B-movie (German)
Die traditionelle Definition des Wortes B - Movie bezieht sich auf ein Double Feature (2 Kinofilme in Folge bei einer Vorstellung), bei dem der Buchstabe B in B - Movie für das englische Wort "backend / back - end" steht. Oft wurde nach einem teuer produzierten Kinofilm (sogenannte Filme der Hollywood A - List) ein zweiter, billig und schnell produzierter, Film gezeigt. Hier ist zu beachten, dass dies bis in die 20er Jahre zurückgeht und damals war die "normale" Länge eine Films ca. 60 bis maximal 75 Minuten lang. Die Kinobesitzer konnten so höhere Eintrittsgelder verlangen, da mit 2 Filmen eine Kinovorstellung ca. 120 Minuten dauerte. Nachfolgend nun eine kurze zeitliche Historie der B - Movies:1920 - 1949
B - Movies wurden schnell, billig und günstig produziert. Diese Filme hatten (wenn überhaupt) ein geringes Werbebudget oder wurden als "Füller" im Anschluss an eine teurere Produktion gezeigt. Gleichzeitig gaben die Studios unbekannten Darstellern die Möglichkeit, sich auszuprobieren und konnten über einen Erfolg in diesen Filmen erkennen, wie attraktiv das Publikum diesen neuen Schauspieler findet.1950 - 1969
Die Hochzeit der B - Movies. Am Ende der 40er Jahre entwickelt sich in den USA eine neue "Kinokultur": Das Autokino. Innerhalb kürzester Zeit eröffnen im ganzen Land hunderte von Autokinos. Da diese Kinos meist täglich wechselnde Programme anbieten, benötigen die Inhaber der Kinos Unmengen von Filmen, welche aber auch in der Lizenz zum Verleih billig sein müssen. Anfänglich werden "alte" Filme gezeigt, doch bald erkennen Studios wie American International die Chance, mit billig und schnell produzierten Filmen Geld zu verdienen.1970 - 1989
In dieser Zeit etablieren sich (wie in den 50er Jahren die Autokinos) private Kabelsender im amerikanischen Fernsehen. Ähnlich wie bei den Autokinos benötigen diese Fernsehsender viele und von der Lizenz her günstige Filme, um ein Fernsehprogramm von 24 Stunden am Tag zu gewährleisten. Somit greift man auf die billig produzierten Filme der früheren B - Movie - Ära zurück und diese Filme werden einem (neuen) Publikum gezeigt.1990 - ????
Durch die neuen technischen Möglichkeiten gelingt es nun, mit geringen Kosten qualitativ hochwertige Filme zu drehen und somit verschwinden die Grenzen zwischen einer teuer gedrehten Produktion und einem B - Movie (vergleiche zum Beispiel den großen Erfolg des B - Movie's "The Blair Witch Project"). --http://www.bmovies.de/definition_bmovie.html [May 2005]
2005, May 27; 01:25 ::: Counterculture indexanarchism - black pride - bohemia - censorship - civil rights - free love - gay pride - groovy - hippy - libertine - May 1968 (Paris) - lifestyle - Marxism - nihilism - minority - opposition - outcast - outsider - rebellion - sexual revolution - subculture - subversive - underdog - woodstock - youth culture
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