Many of you will have already heard tell of the Edison Lounge, a new nightclub built around the remnants of an Edwardian era power plant in downtown Los Angeles. Located in the basement of the 1906 Higgins Building, this 10,000 square foot industrial space lay under several feet of flood water for decades, until owner/designer Andrew Meieran (along with business partner Marc Smith) undertook the Herculean task of resuscitating it.
From its art deco-decked cabaret space The Lab, to the Generator Lounge and Boiler Room (literally an enormous brick-lined boiler, carved out to create a cozy, candlelit cave), to its delicious Tesla Fries and absinthe drinks, the Edison is thematic aesthetic perfection.
Unsurprisingly, it’s been Coilhouse staff meeting headquarters since the very beginning. I’ve often gotten chills just imagining Rachel Brice, Jill Tracy or the Lucent Dossier troupe in that dreamy environment. Picture my joy when I discovered that Lucent Dossier actually has been performing there!
“Reminiscent of Paris and Berlin of the ’20’s, Wednesday nights the venue is transformed into an exploration of the past - a peek into the decadent, sensuous underbelly of historic LA.”
These people are almost unbearably beautiful, both inside and out, and they put on a great show. If you happen to be in the neighborhood tomorrow night, you won’t want to miss what’s sure to be a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle.* Nadya, Zoetica and I will all be there to document the event, so check back to see some photos from Incandescence very soon.
Vaudevillian aerialist troupe Lucent Dossier, performing at the Edison tomorrow night!
More images of the Edison and Lucent Dossier after the jump.
Being mettul is hard on the joints, and no one understands our needs better than German agricultural marketing firms.
Number of the beast (er, cow?)
With a tag-line like “Hard types need hard bones… drink milk!”, beer is now officially relegated to Trivium fans, folks. The campaign was developed by Hamburg Technical Art School, who will hopefully not besuedbyMetallica for using their font.
Advertisers are becoming increasingly metal-friendly, although admittedly the genre is used largely as a vehicle for some ill-conceived punch line. But who can blame them? Metallers look like wankers and write shittier lyrics than Mariah Carey. Everything they touch turns into comedy GOLD:
Esteemed reader Tanya Feldman says, “I love cabbage. I will do anything to spread the word about how awesome cabbage is.” To that end, she just introduced me to Chinese multidisciplinary artist Han Bing and his mischievous Walking the Cabbage (2000-2007) series.
Born in 1974 in an poverty-stricken village, Han Bing spent his childhood helping his parents farm the land and was the only student in his class afforded the chance to attend university. There he studied oil painting before moving on to less conventional mediums. His post-university work has focused on creating spontaneous, open-ended discourse that includes members of society who are often excluded or dismissed. He, like many other young Chinese artist, seems compelled to confront the dubious side effects of his nation’s obsession with urbanizing and modernizing at whatever cost.
From Bing’s website:
Walking the Cabbage (2000-2007) series of social intervention performance, video and photography works, Han Bing walks a Chinese cabbage on a leash in public places, inverting an ordinary practice to provoke debate and critical thinking. Walking the Cabbage is a playful twist on a serious subject—the way our everyday practices serve to constitute “normalcy” and our identities are often constituted by the act of claiming objects as our possessions. A quintessentially Chinese symbol of sustenance and comfort for poor Chinese turned upside down, Han Bing’s cabbage on a leash offers a visual interrogation of contemporary social values.
Angel City is a strange place, a concrete sprawl with hidden oases of wonderful things not found anywhere else. These things are what makes this city worth inhabiting and tonight my favorite of all closes its doors forever.
Nova Express, presumably named after a William S. Burroughs book and decorated accordingly, opened its doors in the early 90s, the same year, in fact, that I landed in this country. It knew all the ways to my heart - excellent food, spectacular space-decor, low lights and late hours. I’ve now been going to Nova ever since my pre-teens, celebrating, mourning and meeting for, yes, fifteen years. In fact, the very first official Coilhouse staff meeting was held there, over some cosmic pizza and alarmingly powerful martinis.
I’ll miss the vintage anime projections, the hundreds of old plastic robots, the all-seeing Cthulhu in the corner, my favorite amoeba-shaped table in the window with its lava lamp askew, every last bit of the place, damn it. Cary Long is the owner and artist behind the awesome SciFi decor, to whom I tip my hat and say “Well done”. This was the first place I would name when asked about the best spots to visit in LA, the only place of its kind and it will be missed more than Cary may ever know. Please don’t go, Nova.
The launch of Marilyn Manson’s own brand of absinthe is not exactly being positively embraced by critics. Most compared the drink’s odour to sewage water and one even described the taste as being “as bad as piss”. One wonders how this critic would know this… The beverage, launched under the name ‘Mansinthe’, has also been receiving negative comments by a panel at the gourmet food website www.epicurious.com: the smell of the beverage can be compared to sewage water, swamp mud and rubbing alcohol. And one taster added: “If a smell could speak, this absinthe is saying: ‘Do not touch.’”
Grey pearlescent flesh winds falls across warm skin. Secrets are exchanged.
Photographer William Springfield and dedicated model Sarah showcase exquisite lines and textures of an octopus, while exploring the harsh realities of love between woman and cephalopod. Love consumes, sometimes.
Nom.
Admittedly, I’d rather see a model interact with a virile creature, not mere sushi - and I don’t mean in the hentai sense. Though these images are successful in making me hungry!
Waaaaugh! Why didn’t anyone tell me about Skywhales? This is incredible. Have you seen it? What about you there, in the back, wearing the Dragonriders of Pern tee shirt? Ever heard of Skywhales? Yeah?
DAMN it. I’d never even heard of Skywhales until just now. What a huge, unsightly gap in my nerducation.
My old friend Adam Lamas and I were just wasting many precious hours of life watching catshavepsychoticepisodes on Teh YooToobz when suddenly he asked “wait, time out, have you seen Skywhales?” Nope, never heard of it. He made with the clickies and I promptly spilled bongwater wine all over myself.
My manta ray is all right.
Completed in 1983, Skywhales is an animated short about a race of green-skinned humanoid aliens who live on a floating island in the upper layers of a gaseous planet’s atmosphere. To survive, they hunt enormous manta ray creatures in pedal-powered airships. As this fansite author puts it, Skywhales “is a window onto an alien way of life–language, culture, taboos… as complete a picture as a short film has ever painted, and its final revelations are nothing short of haunting.”
And how! The “boo bee boo boo bee” stuff is a bit grating at first, but hang in there. It’s epic, as Nadya would say. Uber, even. Circle of life. See it! Skywhales! (Sorry, I just really like saying that. “Skywhales!” While making jazz hands.) But seriously. It’s gorgeous and poignant and disturbing. Like your mom. With a mohawk.
Skywhales!
Skywhales! Directed by Derek Hayes and Phil Austin and produced for Channel 4.
Via the “You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice” blog: the design on the left appeared on the wall at a McDonald’s in the UK. Speculation runs rampant as to whether this was a blatant ripoff of NIN’s “The Fragile” or whether someone on the staff that came up with the interior design was just making a reference. More images can be seen at Echoing the Sound, the NIN fan forum where this story first appeared.
I like to think that this was an homage, a fan sneaking his favorite band into McDonald’s for fellow fans to recognize. Then again, maybe it was the night before deadline and some desperate designer picked up the CD nearest to his Mac and this happened. What do you guys think?
Skerror adds: “I wouldn’t be surprised if this type of thing was in the next generation of corporate tricks tho…maybe they start paying people to subvert their own brand/culture just to drum up interest. Then people go to McDonald’s and take cellphone pics and upload them saying, ‘Look at how well the underground has infiltrated McDonald’s. We are winning the war. Is anyone else hungry?’”
I’m not sure how to explain what makes Death Bed: The Bed That Eats so special, or if I should even try. I certainly didn’t know anything about the film when it was first recommended to me (by some hairy-palmed weirdo lurking near the Jess Rollin section of Kim’s in NYC a few years back). Completed in 1977, this “forgotten horror classic” was never officially released. Legend has it that director George Barry had no idea anyone had even seen the picture until he Googled himself and found a bunch of websites raving about it. After 25 years, Cult Epics finally put it out on DVD.
Death Bed is definitely rave-worthy, but again, I’m at a loss to explain why without taking away some of the mystique. Here’s the overview from Cult Epics:
“At the edge of a grand estate, near a crumbling old mansion lies a strange stone building with just a single room. In the room, a four-poster bed waits to absorb the flesh, blood and life essence of unwary travelers…”
Just a little something to whet your appetites, dear readers.
“Many role-oriented fetishes are outgrowths of the simple desire to dominate or be dominated. “The Turkey Man” is an extreme form of such fetishes wherein a man feels sexual pleasure when he is treated like the Thanksgiving turkey. We didn’t make this up.
A Turkey Man usually has a dominatrix dressed as a classic mothering housewife come to his home, where he has constructed a large oven out of usually cardboard or plywood. The Turkey Man then strips, leaving only his socks (like the little paper booties on the turkey’s feet), and crawls into the oven. The woman then describes to the man how she will baste, cook and eat him. Lord only knows where the meat thermometer ends up!”
