DOIN IT RITE:

Via Tristan.

Post tags: Better than coffee, Crackpot Visionary, Flora & Fauna, Memes, Silly-looking types, Stroke Material

Holy shit.

Pardon the clipped, crass commentary but that’s what leapt from my mouth upon watching The Eagleman Stag, the 2011 BAFTA award-winning short film from Mikey Please. The stop-motion animation used here is incredible, with everything from the characters to the sets having been constructed using pure white foam, requiring a meticulous use of lighting to create shadows and, thereby, definition. The site for the film features a teaser of a behind the scenes look at how it was made. Even if the process underpinning the film isn’t something that usually gets you hot and bothered the film itself is still an utterly captivating, Existential study. Well worth eight minutes of your day, though Dr. Eagleman may disagree.

Post tags: Animation, Art, Film, Stroke Material

Good morning. Pretend for a moment that this is not, in fact, the Spring of 2012, but rather the Spring of 1982, now thirty years past. We’re in England. New Romance is budding. Rocky Horror is a’rockin’. The likes of Gary Numan, Spandau Ballet, and Klaus Nomi rule subterranean radio.

Under the banner of SHOCK, two young London lads with very excellent bone structure and pop ‘n’ lock skillz named Tim Dry (who would one day become Tik from the robotic mime duo Tik & Tok) and Richard James Burgess (who would go on to produce all manner of sophisti-pop) have joined forces with two young London lasses with very large hair and dovelike coos called Carole Caplin (who shall one day become far better known as the tormented fitness and fashion consultant to Tony and Cherie Blair) and Barbie Wilde (who is soon to be immortalized in celluloid as the creepyhot female Cenobite from Hellraiser II).

And they make this splendiferousness happen:

Via Brian Moroz, with giggly thanks.

If you enjoyed this darque ‘n’ tender morsel of obscure nostalgia, you may also appreciate:

• Teen Goth
• Poésie Noire: “Tragedy”
• The MegaMen
• Bristol Punks
• Tim Curry in “The Worst Witch”
• “Die Sonne”
• Crowleymas, LOLeymas
• Darque Dungeon
• Haysi Fantayzee
• Nosferatu Vogueing: A Symphony of Horror
• Going to MTV Hell With Nick and Blixa
• Lene Lovich

Post tags: Better than coffee, Britannia, Cyberpunk, Dance, Geekdom, Goth, Hair, Music, Punk, Robots, Sci-fi

“I said anything I wanted because I don’t believe in children, I don’t believe in childhood. I don’t believe that there’s a demarcation. ‘Oh you mustn’t tell them that. You mustn’t tell them that.’ You tell them anything you want. Just tell them if it’s true. If it’s true you tell them.”

~ Maurice Sendak

With this post I run the risk of turning the top of Coilhouse into a memorial to my youth, but there’s really no helping it, I suppose. More sad news then, as it has been reported that author and illustrator Maurice Sendak died today, at the age of 83 due to complications from a recent stroke. Sendak was perhaps best known for his 1963 book Where the Wild Things Are. The book not only made his career but earned him the prestigious Caldecott Medal in 1964.

Mr. Sendak’s work was a staple of my childhood. I learned to read with the help of the Little Bear Books (written by Else Holmelund Minarik). My first exposure to Grimm’s fairy tales was through my mother’s copy of the collection he illustrated and I had a copy of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Nutcracker which featured his artwork. His Mouse King terrified me.

And that is, above all, what I remember and respected most about his work, his willingness to scare the crap out of kids. There is a darkness and danger in his books, the same kind found in the stories of greats like Carroll and Baum, which seems mostly lacking from children’s literature now, something that Mr. Sendak seemed keenly aware of. Sendak wrote books that treated children like adults, like equals. Speaking to The Guardian last October, he said “I refuse to lie to children. I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence.” This refusal to sugarcoat his work was, undoubtedly, his greatest asset. It will be missed.

Post tags: Art, Fairy Tales, Kid Stuff, Memento Mori

~ Adam Yauch
(August 5, 1964 – May 4, 2012)

Adam Yauch. [via]

“Today I give thanks to those who fought and died for my right to party.” ~@RichardRushfield

An official statement from the Beastie Boys:

“It is with great sadness that we confirm that musician, rapper, activist and director Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch, founding member of Beastie Boys and also of the Milarepa Foundation that produced the Tibetan Freedom Concert benefits, and film production and distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories, passed away in his native New York City this morning after a near-three-year battle with cancer. He was 47 years old.”

MCA, we love you. You can’t, you won’t, and you don’t stop.

Fellow mourning comrades, you are warmly encouraged to post your favorite BB jam in comments.

Post tags: Memento Mori, Music

I may have just peed a little in my witchy-pooh panties.

And that’s all I have say about this:

The sprawling, quicksilver lyrics to this bilaterally symmetrical magnum LULZ opus have been posted below, because they’re… well, just read ‘em. And weep bitter crimson diamonds. Ov Darqueness.

[via DJ Dead Billy / Dangerous Minds]

Read the rest of “Pentagram Sam” by Da Grimston & Mist-E

Post tags: Adornment, Cosmos, Crackpot Visionary, Cthulhu, Culture, Dance, Geekdom, Horror, Magic, Occult, Silly-looking types, Testing your faith, \m/

I’m not going to claim to understand the process by which French duo Lucie & Simon captured these images of cities like Paris, Bejing, and New York without people (save for a single figure). It involves using a “neutral density filter that allows for extra-long exposures, which removes moving objects like people and cars.” How that works or what a “neutral density filter” is, I really cannot say, however, the images produced speak for themselves (and are of much higher resolution on their site.)

I lived in New York for a short time, years ago, and the effect of seeing it this empty is really stunning. The only time it ever came close to this when I was there was early in the morning, on my walk to work at 5:30 or so, and even then, it depended on the neighborhood I was walking through at the time and there were always a few cars. It’s eerie to see it looking so quiet.

Read the rest of Silent World

Post tags: Architecture, Art, Faboo, Photography, Technology

A small sampling of work by Mexican illustrator and street artist Smithe. A small sampling because, were I not to limit myself I would, most likely, just wind up hoarding every piece of art on his blog and transposing it to this one, which is poor form, really, no matter how much you like someone’s portfolio.

The cartoonishness of his style works well with the subject matter, making sure that the exploded anatomy found in many of his pieces retain an air of playfulness so as not to overwhelm the viewer with grotesquerie. His newer illustrations (specifically the bio-mechanical heads) feature more of a comic book feel, with their dark shadows and copious hatching. This seems like a departure (though, no less successfully executed) from his previous work which features a looser, more animated style. Either way, I am a fan.

Read the rest of Street Art By Smithe

Post tags: Art, Faboo

A quick heads up: NPR just posted “The Music and Meaning of Paris Is Burning“, an article by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd that discusses Jennie Livingston‘s classic 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning and the legendary scene and songs that it celebrates.

In addition to providing an overview of both the documentary and vogue ball culture (both past and present) the NPR feature includes testimonies from Big Freedia, Light Asylum, Zebra Katz, Del Marquis, and many others. A quick, great read. It’s also exciting to discover that the documentary –which has been, for decades, fairly difficult to track down a decent copy of– is now readily available on iTunes and Netflix Streaming.

The realm of Paris Is Burning: resonant and radiant as it ever was.

Post tags: Culture, Dance, DIY, Faboo, Fashion, Film, Gender, Grrrl, Music, Personal Style, Queer, Revolutionary, Sexuality

Bonjour, mes petits concombres!

If you’ve already experienced Will Sweeney and Steve Scott‘s animated psychedelic 2009 music video for Birdy Nam Nam‘s tune “The Parachute Ending”, look away. Or, hey, don’t. Because you know it’s trippin’ AMAZEBALLS and you probably won’t mind watching it again over a nice morning bowl of strawberries ‘n’ Special K.

Most Birdy Nam Nam-related things tend to be –in this blogger’s humble opinion– pretty thoroughly amazeballs. The BNN DJ crew is comprised of four fabulous Frenchmen known as Crazy-B, DJ Need, DJ Pone, and Little Mike. They joined forces in 2006 and has been steadily gaining notoriety ever since thanks largely to their novel and challenging style of music-making: they take thousands of samples gleaned from various sources, press all of the beats and patterns into towering stacks of vinyl, and then assemble/spin these kaleidoscopic collaged elements live. It’s bleepy bloopy bonkers brilliance.

Enjoy, and have a gorgeous day.

© Birdy Nam Nam / Steve Scott 2009

[Hat tip to Mr. Maps!]

Post tags: Animation, Better than coffee, Dance, Drugs, Faboo, Music, Robots, Sci-fi, Vive la France