And now it’s time for a joyous yodel (erm, sorry) shout out to a dear sister in Lucerne, Mlle Susanne G., a young lady who has officially been keeping it weird on the web since 2003. Unofficially? Much longer than that. In fact, we first found one another on deadjournal (of all the godforsaken places!) maaaany, many moons ago. Like, a moon in the nineties. *gasp*
Her blog compendium, Wurzeltod, is one of my absolute favorite nooks on the net, “a drawer full of all things weird, grotesque, bitter-sweet, embalmed and fortean. Brought to you by Suzanne – the eternal art history student.” You’ll laugh, you’ll cry… occasionally you’ll gag. It’s bliss.
So go for the gas masks, stay for the marzipan, and tell her Coilhouse sent ye.
Mister Christopher Bischoff has just reminded me that I’d been meaning to do a little feature on Necromance.
A long-time Angel City resident, i have the fortune and pleasure of living very close to this delightful shop [Now two shops, to be exact, as Necromance has expanded] and have been frequenting it since i was a wee lunchbox-toting spookling.
Owned by an exceptional and fashionable lady named Nancy, Necromance first opened its doors in New Orleans long ago and LA is very lucky to have it here today. The window displays are always brimming with eye candy – antique writing cabinets adorned with bones and dried flowers, candles beside aged porcelain dolls and taxidermied deer. You’ll be lured in by the faint trickle of 1920’s music, vintage glass, charts of mysterious anatomical regions and dim glare of strange medical devices alongside exotic beetles. Inside the shops’ incensed walls you’ll find a menagerie of…amazing stuff. It’s impossible to list all they offer here, but their online store will give you something of an overview.
It isn’t all collectibles and home decor, either. Victorian mourning jewelry, postcards, books and, yes, black toilet paper are some of the practical items Necromance offers. If you ever find yourself in Los Angeles i advise you march right over to Melrose Avenue and pay tribute to this gem. Until such time you can peruse and purchase online at Necromance.com
Yana Moskaluk is a young illustrator from Russia. As a teenage goth living in Siberia, Yana decided to pursue a career in the arts and moved to Moscow to begin work when she was only 19. Yana’s work is dark and playful, and shares many characteristics with that of Aubrey Beardsley; a balance between intricate linework and clean planes of color, the influence of Japanese printmaking and love for the sensual and the grotesque. Coilhouse recently caught up with Yana for a quick Q&A:
Coilhouse: You’re currently in the middle of illustrating a series of Zodiac illustrations. Do you believe that astrology really works?
Yana: Astrology — yes. General horoscopes from magazines — no. This series of illustrations is a commercial work for a magazine, so I’ve started to draw it not on my own.
? Try to think about parasites without a feeling of fear, and take the time to learn about their wonderful world of the Parasites.? so states the official website of the world’s only parasite museum in Meguro – a relatively quiet neighborhood in Tokyo, Japan. Most of the Coil-staff was on a Tokyo adventure in September and paid individual visits to this wonderful place between fits of devouring strange candy and exhausting their funds in fancy boutiques.
Boasting 45,000 parasite specimens immersed in formaline, the museum is a privately-founded and now government-aided establishment. With its parasite-positive atmosphere the museum lives up to its slogan and is a popular date spot. It’s easy to see why! Milky white samples float peacefully on night sky-blue backdrops in neat, glass jar rows. Friendly interactive displays show diagrams of various relationships between animals and parasites which inhabit them. A long ribbon hangs near a case displaying an impressive tapeworm, nearby sign encouraging the visitor to play with the ribbon to understand the tapeworm’s length. Don’t fear – this is an educational adventure, friends!
The museum isn’t particularly large, and won’t take more than an hour to conquer. Admission is free and photography is allowed. I highly recommend you pay our little friends a visit, even if you’re only in Tokyo for a few days. You’ll be glad you tore yourself away from the hostess bars, gluttony and experimental toilets in favor of learning!
Hats off to Mr. Leland Sprinkle, inventor of the world’s largest musical instrument, the one-of-a-kind Stalacpipe Organ. Located deep in the bowels of Luray Caverns in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, its 3 1/2 acres of cavern stalactites produce resonant tones when electronically tapped by rubber-tipped mallets rigged to a large organ console in a centralized chamber.
Sprinkle, a mathematician and electronics whiz employed at the Pentagon, began his colossal project in 1954. For three years, he prowled the caverns with lamp and mallet, tapping thousands of stalactites in search of formations that would precisely match each of the 37 tones needed for a musical scale tuned to concert pitch. After this was accomplished, two master carpenters, Loyd Almarode and Richard Beaver, were brought in to build the beautiful inner and outer consoles of the organ itself.
I first heard the haunting, unpredictable music of Luray Caverns several years ago on a mix tape and had no idea what was producing it. Later on, the wonderful radio station WFMUdevoted a segment to the invention. Everyone I know who has experienced the Stalacpipe Organ in person says no recording –not even one using the most fancypants binaural mic in the world– could ever compare to the live experience. I gotta get out there someday SOON. Road trip, anyone?
Having been a bit overwhelmed lately by blanched, washed out, sepia-tinted, Dover-collagey everything, surreal footage that looks like animated Lomo imagery is delightful change of pace. Plus? Ponies!
In addition to his fashion designs and his epic weight loss, remedy Karl Lagerfeld is also known for his fashion photography. The above is from Vogue Germany October 2007.
The Story: “Wellen”
Photografed by Karl Lagerfeld
Fashion Editor: Christiane Arp
Models: Claudia Schiffer and others
I always hated the writing of Lovecraft – how many tedious descriptions of shrubbery can you bear? – but paradoxically adore everything that’s inspired by his work, from Cthulhu Sex Magazine to the song “Colours Out of Space” by Evil’s Toy to stories like “Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar” by Gaiman to the Tigerlilies/Alexander Hacke Mountains of Madness project to Hello Cthulhu to, most recently and hilariously, to LOLCTHULHU macros. Like a bad song that reveals itself to be a masterpiece after a good remix, the Cthulhu Mythos lend themselves to brilliant interpretation time and time again.
In its most recent incarnation, Lovecraft’s work is to become a film called CTHULHU. The film deals with gay themes, anti-Bush sentiments, the Apocalypse, an it features – get ready for this – Tori Spelling! As some fans have already commented, sadly and quite surprisingly Spelling does not play Cthulhu. Go watch the trailer right now.
Stalin, or “Good Ol’ Uncle Joe” as he was called in America before the tides turned, liked to have fancy titles bestowed upon him in Russia. Below are some of the most epic:
Coryphaeus of Science
Father of Nations
Brilliant Genius of Humanity
Great Architect of Communism
Engineer of Human Souls
Gardener of Human Happiness
Experienced Helmsman of Our Revolutionary Vessel
Source: Wikipedia. These handy for generating a title for yourself on the Brass Goggles Forum. All aboard Airship Stalin!
Posted by Nadya Lev on September 28th, 2007
Filed under Russia, Steampunk | Comments Off on Stalin: Best Friend of All Cows and Milkmaids
“Honor to the Futurists who forbade the painting of female hams, the painting of portraits and guitars in the moonlight. They made a huge step forward: they abandoned meat and glorified the machine.”
– Kasimir Malevich, 1918
Image by Russian industrial musician Alexander Lebedev-Frontov.
In 1921, Russian physicist Lev Theremin, an inventor who insisted on building all his creations by hand, constructed the theremin, one of the 20 th century’s first successful electronic musical instruments and still the only music instrument whose haunting tones are elicited without touching the device. Unlike Theremin, neither famous theremin-users John Cage, Download, Brian Eno, Meat Beat Manifesto or Edgar Varese were ever arrested for its use. After a decade of teaching and performing, Theremin was suddenly seized and imprisoned in 1938 by the KGB on the grounds of “anti-Soviet Propaganda.” Theremin was sent to Siberia and later to a labor camp in Omsk, where, alongside other indentured scientists, he was forced to work on various military projects (Theremin was later given the Stalin Prize for perfecting the eavesdropping device known as “the bug”). Thus begins the history of industrial music in Russia…
