Dontcha love it when we get it right? I love high-budget, haute-goth fashion editorials and seeing big-name designers go dark on the runway, but there’s something especially satisfying about seeing designers “of the scene” really pull off something spectacular from start to finish, from garment to finished photograph. It’s a pleasure when designers not only produce gorgeous garments, but really get involved in presenting them in a certain way. In this case, Tea Bauer, creator of Slovenian fashion label Degenerotika (previously featured here), borrows a page from Vintage Vogue to give us the wonderfully classic, textured and geometric “when-Leeloo-met-Irving-Penn” fashion image above. I love everything about it! More large-size images from this series, after the jump.

Yellow hair? Yum! Coat’s not too shabby, either. Degenerotika is definitely one to watch.

Morrigan, by Stuntkid

I love this incredible new drawing by Jason Levesque, aka Stuntkid. It’s a portrait of my friend Scar, and the shape of the crows is based on a dress by Mother of London (this drawing was based on a shoot that Jason did with Scar, which can be seen here). The colors and mood in this image take me back to the weirdest tales I grew up with; the somber atmosphere reminds me of the quiet creepiness of Ivan Bilibin, whose take on fairy tales is the most melancholy I’ve ever seen.

Dear Coilhäusers,

I do not have a confession to make. I do not have an abiding and utterly irrational love of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Not at all. Really, I don’t. Anything you may have heard to the contrary is the most vile and vicious slander. Again: I don’t like it. I sure as hell don’t crank up the volume when it comes on the radio. No Sirree. That’s only a repeated, annoying technical malfunction. I also, absolutely, 100% do not sing along in an overly dramatic fashion. Nope. Not me. Uh-uh.

The last thing I don’t do is lie awake at night, fearful that if my (non-existent) secret love of this power ballad came to light it would utterly ruin my reputation and any future rants of mine would be outright dismissed as they came up against the cold, hard brick wall of “Hey, Forbes is obviously wrong. The bastard likes Total Eclipse of the Heart. End of discussion.”

I mean, after all, it’s a terrible song: the gaudiest kind of syrupy ’80s excess. The video is even more awesome worse, so mind-numbingly ornate it provokes long, detailed thematic dissections. It has dancing greasers, sweaty fencers and dashing lads in suits wrecking elaborate dinners. And ninjas, of course, you can’t forget the frickin’ ninjas. Or the flying hive-mind of choir boys with radioactive eyes. Oh yeah, there’s also an angel. Really.

But all is not lost. If there is something I have no shame in adoring, hidden or otherwise, it’s the brilliant kitchen appliance battering, tracksuit-wearing Norwegian band Hurra Torpedo‘s cover of TEotH (my how I love that acronym. It sounds like an invocation to some grand hell-beast! Come, Great TEotH!). Minimalist and silly but surprisingly poignant, Hurra gives a whole new feel to this song-I-so-don’t-like.

See there? Doesn’t banging on kitchen appliances make everything better? Damn f’in right it does!

And I ain’t confessing crap.

Writer, speaker and techno-progressive guru Jamais Cascio is one of the most inspiring people I know. Guess what his day job is? Basically, it’s Trying To Save The World. (I mean, I doubt that’s on his business card, or how he introduces himself at dinner parties, but it’d be a pretty accurate title.)

“Pessimism is a luxury in good times… In difficult times, pessimism is a self-fulfilling, self-inflicted death sentence.” –Evelin Linder (as quoted by Jamais Cascio during his 2006 talk at the TED conference)

On any given day, Jamais keeps busy wrangling with a wide variety of ideas that may help keep our “hellbound handbasket” from going down in flames. He speaks and writes frequently on the use of future studies as a tool for anticipating, combating or averting all manner of crises, be they related to environmental change, exponential technological growth, natural and man-made catastrophes, or global development. We’re talking Serious Business.

He’s a Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He’s a Global Futures Strategist for the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. He’s a Research Affiliate at the Institute for the Future. Jeez a loo. You guys impressed yet?! (If not, don’t come anywhere near me. I don’t truck with zombies.)

Jamais has recently written a book called Hacking the Earth: Understanding the Consequences of Geoengineering. Here’s the gist:

Pay attention to the nice futurist. He’s here to help. Buy the book.

Super Plenamins via Found in Mom’s Basement

I don’t talk about I much, but I have a sort of ongoing quest to become superhuman on the cheap using only willpower and widely available drugstore products. This is probably not as silly as it sounds. I do believe it’s entirely possible to level up my very being, if I can only find the right combo of stuff to ingest. In this quest, I’ve subjected my body to all kinds of experiments. Most of them have done nothing but I’ve discovered a few things that actually, shockingly, do what they’re supposed to do and make me a better, higher-functioning creature. What do you do to become a more efficient, better human?

B VITAMINS. Know why Red Bull makes you feel so peppy? It’s not just the caffeine, or you’d be getting the same sustained buzz from Coke and coffee. It’s the B vitamins, the lack of which in our systems leads to such symptoms as depression, anemia and sluggishness. While some critics claim the marketing of B vitamins is just a gimmick, I don’t believe it for a second and invite you to draw your own conclusions. Beginning a regimen of daily B complex supplements last year boosted my energy and pretty much kiboshed about 75% of my persistent battle with depression — kicked to the curb, to an astounding extent, a lifetime of feeling too tired and unmotivated to do things. The stuff is water-soluble and all excess B vitamins in your system will come out in the form of neon green urine, so don’t worry about taking “1000 percent of the RDA!” Just take a little and see what happens. THIS SHIT SAVED MY LIFE.

VALERIAN ROOT. I was introduced to this stuff by a Russian co-worker, who calls it “Valerianka” and claimed it made her calm and relaxed enough to deal with screaming clients and bosses, without the drowsiness of other tranquilizers. It’s also a natural product, available cheaply and without a prescription, with no harmful documented side effects. It’s been used to treat everything from insomnia, anxiety, depression and gastrointestinal disorders. I find it takes effect almost immediately, producing a detached, sardonic feeling and leaving me clearheaded enough to work productively without emotion—perfect for the office or working in a distracting environment. MIGHT MAKE ME A BETTER PERSON.

SLIM FAST OPTIMA. Though I’m not trying to lose weight, I thought I’d try this because having to eat when my body decides it’s hungry instead of when I decide it’s convenient is a huge pain in the ass. It claims to control hunger for four hours. Instead, this product removes appetite for about four minutes with its nasty, chalky taste. It is most definitely not food. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

EMERGEN-C. These little packets of magic have been favorites of mine since middle school when we used to pour them straight on our tongues at recess and laugh at the weird bubbly tingly sensation and funny smell. The “champagne of energy drinks” comes in a million flavors and makes me feel nice and peppy for short periods of time. Sometimes I chug a packet with water first thing in the morning so I can make it to the bus stop. After all these years I couldn’t tell you if it’s the placebo effect or not. Maybe I should replace it with pop rocks one week and see if I feel any ill effects. Once I get a grant. FURTHER STUDY REQUIRED.

Damn it, my laptop’s power supply cable just queefed and died. I’ll have to be extra quick with BTC this morning before my little external brain goes sreepytime. Luckily, I have just the thing cued up on my playlist:

Scrumptious promo image for HF’s first (and only) album, Battle Hymns For Children Singing. I can’t be the only one who imprinted on Kate Garner’s fashion designs. Stripey, stripey…

Ragamuffin pop duo Haysi Fantayzee *cough* formed in London in the early 80s. Typing out that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad name is like nails on a grammarian’s chalkboard, and the label “Dickensian Hillbilly Rasta” makes me cry blood. Still, I love these guys with a deep, doofy devotion rivaled only by the size of my permaboner for fellow Brit-fops Adam Ant and Boy George.

Performed by Jeremiah Healy and Kate Garner, produced by Garner’s then-boyfriend Paul Caplin, Haysi Fantayzee’s *twitch* UK dance hit, “Shiny Shiny” is quite possibly the most chipper song about the apocalypse ever written (short of Fishbone’s “Party at Ground Zero”). May the antics of these two sexy human fraggles help you dance your cute petudies all the way to work.

A couple more Haysi Fantayzee *gack* clips after the jump.

Bless you, O magical land of Belgium, for bestowing upon the world your gifts of fine chocolates, exquisite wheat beers, Rene Magritte, The Adventures of Tintin, and now this:

(Via Wil Wheaton, who says, “I’m not sure what the hell is going on here, but I love it.”)

More consternating Belgian Trekkie non sequiturs after the jump.

Pictures of last Valentine’s Skate Massacre, from the Wumpskate site.

You’ve not truly experienced the goth/industrial scene until you’ve experienced it on roller skates. The lights, the music, the fashion… at five times the speed, with bone-crunching pain! It sounds like the beginning of that surreal dream that always ends with you driving an ice cream truck in a sexy panda outfit, but here in LA, it’s real. And it’s called… WUMPSKATE (by the way, I’d pay about a million dollars to see Wumpscut’s Rudy Ratzinger on skates). Wumpskate happens once a month, and leaves you energized for weeks to come. The event is held at the ghetto-nouveau World on Wheels, where, for 6 bucks, you get admission and a pair of skates. There are two basic rules: dress up but don’t wear sharp spikes (duh), and don’t get so drunk before showing up that you can’t skate. For pussies who are afeared to step on the rink, there are old-skool arcade games, air hockey and rows upon rows of candy machines.

The best thing about this event is the could-not-give-a-shit attitude. Goth clubs are known for drama, but there’s no time for drama when you’re crashing your ass into the wall at what feels like the speed of light! Everyone is just there to have a blast. Every month, Wumpskate puts on a different theme. We’ve seen Pirateskate, Ninjaskate, Cyberskate, Steampunk Skate, Antigoth Skate, Road Warrior Skate… even SARS Skate (!!!). This upcoming Monday, get ready for… Valentine’s Skate Massacre.

Coilhouse readers in LA, break out your LOLLERSKATES and join us for an evening of excitement and adventure this coming Monday night. The current list of attendees is shaping up to be quite the Issue 01 reunion. The event is all ages, from 9 PM – 1 PM. We’d better see you there!

• Wumpskate’s Site
• Wumpskate FAQ
• Map & Driving Directions

They raise the call of destruction. They called upon alternate laws of science — the powers of nature men had once called witchcraft, the necromantic anti-science of the past brought forward to save the world by destroying it! – From the back of Gordon R. Dickson’s Necromancer, 1962 edition

Welcome back to All Tomorrows dear reader. It’s been far too long since our last foray into the glories of sci-fi’s deviant age. For that, you have my apologies. My day (and night sometimes) job of journalism has been keeping me busier than usual, and on top of that, a box full of many of my best old books, including a lot of future subjects for this column, disappeared, probably eaten by something unspeakable.

Starting with this column, All Tomorrows will shift to every other week. This will give me the time to write pieces of deserving depth on the works we’ll be tackling. Believe me, we’ve got some doozies ahead.

This time, it’s Gordon R. Dickson’s 1962 Uber parable Necromancer, the tale of a future where the enterprising Chantry Guild has figured out a way to make magic work. Not just metaphorically, but also in the “I chant and stuff blows up” way. Necromancer follows an ubermensch-in-training, who joins the guild’s quest to tear down society.

Way back in the very first All Tomorrows I mentioned a certain subgenre of sci-fi hero that fit this description: With his Uber name, imposing looks and knowledge of a vague future super-social-science, Bron is a riff on the sort of character that, in the hands of older school sci-fi writers, would end up at the head of a space armada, woman breathily clinging to his leg, humorlessly announcing the next stage ™ in human evolution.

Well, Necromancer is kind of like that. Dickson was very definitely a product of that older school, but, on a mystical kick that would presage some of the cultural movements about to rock sci-fi (and everything else) he went out on a limb. While this book has all the implied flaws of the old ways, it keeps many of its strengths — big ideas, tight plotting, suspenseful twists and over-the-top action — while offering a glimpse of what was to come.

If you’re in San Jose, tonight you have the opportunity to see some of comics genius and Coilhouse contributor Andy Ristaino’s hyper-detailed masterpieces in person. His new comic book, The Babysitter,  is out now – you can get it here, courtesy of SLG. You can also find some artwork and an interview with Andy in Coilhouse Issue 02. A brief description of The Babysitter from the SLG site:

By night Setsuko Kagaku is the world’s leading babysitter. Equipped with her trusty rocket pack, she jetsets all around the globe keeping the world’s greatest resource (the children, silly) safe. But by day she is just another teenager dealing with the same problems that any other Japanese schoolgirl faces: giant robots, big angry kaiju bakumono (monsters), crazy science experiments gone awry, weird tentacled beasties, global conspiracies, alien invaders, not to mention good grades, plenty of teen angst, and boys! Join Setsuko as she tries to deal with the panic and claustrophobia of living in a depiction of modern Japan that only a completely uninformed and rather stupid American could make.

Ristaino’s images truly send you on a trip unlike any other. Everyone sees something different in them. For example, when I showed Issue 02 to the nice Korean lady I buy lunch from, she looked at the picture below and said, completely unexpectedly (in, imagine, the thickest “Margaret Cho’s mom” accent ever): “some people may look at this picture and see GROUP SEX, but I see a revolution. Yes. Revolution.”

Don’t miss your chance to see this intricate spazzfest in the flesh! If you’re not lucky enough to be in San Jose tonight, definitely pick up a copy of The Babysitter when you get the chance! Here are the details, taken from Andy’s blog:

When – Friday February 6th
Time – 7:00 PM until Late
Where: SLG Art Boutiki & Gallery
577 S. Market Street
San Jose, CA 95113