Photo via Ben Heaney over at http://www.digitalviolin.com.

This was originally a guest-blog written several years ago at the request of my dear friend Warren Ellis, for Die Puny Humans (may it rest in peace). Now with visual aids!

I have a new beau. Well, not so new. He’s probably quite a bit older than I am, actually. A big, brass Stroh violin, aka a phono-fiddle:

Photo via Ben Heaney over at http://www.digitalviolin.com.

The phono-fiddle is much louder than a conventional violin, but its timbre is thinner, with eerie phonographic overtones. Vibrations from the strings are conducted to the center of an aluminum disc that acts as a diaphragm (like a very old-fashioned amp), propelling the sound back out through the large horn and smaller ear trumpet.

Sometimes, the Stroh sounds like a human voice playing through a hand-cranked Victrola. Other times it sounds like a tenor saxophone gargling a cat…

Posture collar. Found on romantasy.com

While this may not be a corset I would choose for her, this is exactly the sort of lady that needs to wear more corsets.

I can’t help but feel almost a little dirty looking at her, invasive – as if I’d found a trunk of old boudoir photos in someone’s room. That’s what makes this so great – her refined face and hair allude to a privileged matron; equestrian socialite by day, secret fetishist by night.

You’ve discarded your crushed velvets. You’ve cast aside your zippered, D-ringed, and safety-pinned garments and long for something new. Where do you go from here? You require sophistication. You want drama without the bell sleeves. We understand.

Allow us to suggest you closely examine the work of Rick Owens. While his designs are not exactly pocket-book friendly, they do wonders for the imagination. Even if you won’t shell out for his stuff, you’ll certainly learn a thing or two about layering, proportion and structure. No matter how odd a garment, his tailoring is spot-on every time, flattering to most bodies, and, above all, painfully hot. This is style, damn it.

First Annual MySpace Stupid Haircut Awards
Second Annual MySpace Stupid Haircut Awards

Oh no! They are making fun! Oldie but goodie, this site takes images of several unfortunate MySpace “hair artists” and reveals their superhero alter egos. I wouldn’t laugh so hard if I didn’t know that every single member of the Coil-staff could easily wind up in the next edition of this. Easily.

????????, originally uploaded by Coilhouse.

Just a season’s reminder of the unspeakable horror lurking outside your wooden hovel’s window, as you huddle atop a clay oven wrapped in ragged shawls and quilts for warmth. Beware, the vurdalak!

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O sorrow! I am small and weak;
The fiend will eat me whole,
Unless I eat dirt from a grave
Along with prayer I’ll speak.
A.S. Pushkin

Sweet dreams, we hope your gravedirt is most delectable.

Completely in the Dark!, originally uploaded by Coilhouse.

Jackson Brain Griffith sums up the appeal of crackpot visionary Judson Fountain: “Imagine paint-sniffers aiming for the Firesign Theatre and hitting Plan 9 From Outer Space.”

Much like cult legends Shooby Taylor, Lucia Pamela and Gary Wilson, Fountain’s warped genius would not have survived these long decades were it not for the feverish worship of bootleggers. By the time his priceless “radio drammers” were officially released on CD in 2004, Fountain had long-since gained icon status among lovers of outsider music, cartoonists, and (somewhat redundantly) WFMU DJs and listeners.

From Innova’s artist one-sheet:

Judson Fountain (b. 1952) grew up after the heyday of classic radio theater, but as a child heard vestiges of programs that had enthralled his parents. He developed an obsession with suspense-filled shows like The Shadow, Inner Sanctum, and Lights Out! While most Americans were evolving into couch potatoes, Judson embraced radio as the superior theatrical medium, and felt compelled to single-handedly revive the art. That he lacked training, technology, skilled staff and a budget did not deter him. Ed Wood, Jr. made movies; Judson produced radio dramas.

Judson was between 17 and 22 when he produced these extremely primitive affairs. His simple, derivative plotlines employ Halloween kitsch — spooks, witches, haunted houses — as vehicles in morality plays about redemption for the honorable and damnation for evil-doers. The original recordings were pressed on LPs (reportedly about 200 copies of each). The jackets were hand-made, with grainy xeroxes pasted on otherwise blank cardboard sleeves.

Their limited edition CD (produced by foremost outsider musicologist Irwin Chusid and Barbara Economon) is itself growing difficult to score. But you can still grab the tracks off emusic, bless ’em.

Below is a collection of the top 5 TV commercials that feature goth characters (and one special bonus, after the jump!). Whether or not you’re goth, these are hilarious. Most of these were made by large corporations such as Dell and Kodak, but surprisingly, one of the most well-produced and high-budget-looking commercials below was done by a gothic clothing company! Of course, that commercial is not American, but European. Here it is:

Sinister Clothing:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/DoYGO9jKrLY" width="400" height="330" wmode="transparent" /]

The tagline at the end of the commercial translates to “clothing your mother hates.” Even though the US is not yet at the advanced level of advertising goth clothing on TV, there are some progressive outlooks on goth culture in the commercials after the jump below:

*media, originally uploaded by Coilhouse.

By far the most charming place I visited during my recent Japan-o-dventure was the Jusaburo puppet museum.

Nestled between bigger buildings in Ningyocho [literally translated to City of Dolls], a less busy district in Tokyo, this place is something of a landmark – signs and maps point to its location starting at the train station. Jusaburo Tsujimura’s early life story reads like a novel – he was born to a geisha mother from an unknown father and spent his childhood in a geisha house surrounded by the colorful rustling silk which inspires him to this day. Today, after a lifetime of achievement he is one of many puppeteers living in Ningyocho, his atelier-museum and impressive gamut of work attracting recognition since its opening in 1996.

Entering the place I was instantly entranced. We seemed to be the only visitors at first. A helpful employee led us past cabinets filled with tiny figurines, past a small work area with dolls and puppets in varying levels of completion to the back room where an assortment of cabaret music played and an elaborate set took up the entirety of the back wall. An homage to Moulin Rouge, a miniature multi-tiered stage illuminated by a twinkling color light show and adorned by several rows of chorus girls, with their gorgeous blue-feathered Prima Donna at the forefront. By the time i took it all in my jaw had begun its decent.

Cheeky monkey Emily Rishea submits her fashion label, Artifice Clothing, through our submit form: “hey why not, I feel shameless,” she writes. Okay, we’ll bite! Artifice does a great job with all the classics and invents some new ones, such as these Victoria’s-Secret-meets-the-Rocketeer light-up mechanical wings. The range also has bit of a sense of humor, as can be seen in this Bunny Lolita ensemble, which the site describes as “terrifying”. But my absolute favorite item on the site has to be this Cybertek Collar, which makes you look like a Dr. Who villain from the Tom Baker era. In an era of Victorian future, the one person who rocks up wearing this as part of an outfit inspired by bad 1970s sci-fi tech will be the envy of the tea party indeed.

The price of your vile excesses, capsule originally uploaded by Coilhouse.

“The end of the Green Fairy”, via Musee Absinthe.
Curious Absinthe prohibition posters from early 20th century France.