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Yet another Doomsday has mercifully passed us by. Meanwhile, the horrors taking place around the globe stay their course. Corruption, scandal, and greed continue to rocket to the front pages of our newspapers.

Has there ever been a more dire need for magic?

In the shimmering hills that surround Los Angeles, art, wonder and the hope that only a spectacle can birth are being celebrated. The hard-working ghost of Harry Houdini is traveling the country via Houdini: Art & Magic, a comprehensive retrospective chronicling the life of an immigrant Rabbi’s son turned bonafide American showman. On a recent drive back from Malibu, the first stop on my long-overdue west coast vacation, street markers with stiff black flags trumpeting the arrival of Art & Magic at the Skirball Cultural Center had me jumping out of my passenger’s seat.

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I had first seen the exhibit at the Jewish Museum in March before it closed at the end of the month. That same week, Houdini’s last living assistant, Dorothy Young, died in a retirement community in New Jersey at the age of 103, three days before what would’ve marked Houdini’s 137^th birthday. The stars were aligning rapidly before me, and I, a sucker for synchronicity, could not churn out the review I wanted in time for the exhibit to end. I sat among pages of obsessive notes describing what I had seen at the museum, from Houdini’s diaries, to photographs of him with his beloved mother, and his performance trunk curling with worn and cracked brown leather. I swooned over the thin, almost romantic curl to his handwriting, lamented his untimely death, and dug up details from the obituaries of Dorothy, a woman who, at the age of 17, had been selected by the magician from a crowd at Coney Island, and kept her stalwart promise never to reveal his secrets.

YESSSSSS. Vegan Black Metal Chef has a new episode, and a KVLT new website. (Honestly? It’s not kvlt at all. It’s actually kinda sweet.) “AAAHHHHHHHHH. VEGAN COOKING IS SO MUCH FUN.”  \m/

Le grand digérant (Digesting the great)  No. 4, 102 x 162 x 15

“Giai-Miniet is what’d you get if Kafka had designed Barbie dreamhouses.” (via)

Dreamhouses?  Perhaps more like maisons de cauchemars.   Marc Giai-Miniet‘s painstakingly detailed, mixed-media shadow-box installations are  reminiscent of  a vaguely ominous, fading nightmare; a slumbering visitation to a childhood home,  dilapidated and abandoned,  darkened corridors permeated with a surreal atmosphere of dusty déjà-vu.

Ominous,  fantastical, and yet on some level that barely registers  – these ‘boxes’ are familiar and comforting in a way unique to those corners in which we have previously peeked and will explore once more when we are slumbering and our subconscious holds sway.  Again and again we will wind through our own personal, chaotic and connected dreamhouses –  and M. Giai-Miniet appears to know  this full well.

Born in 1946 in Trappes, France, Marc Giai-Miniet studied at the l’Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, a distinguished national school of Fine Arts in Paris, France. He is currently the Secretary of the Salon de Mai, a gallery founded in Paris with the purpose of encouraging and exhibiting younger abstract artists.

Marc Giai-Miniet, photo by Sylvie Giai-Miniet

According to Giai-Miniet (though run through Google translator) :

“The ‘boxes’ have appeared relatively late in my work as a painter, as a natural and necessary, and have become an inseparable part, a double play. Reminiscent of my teenage desire to do theater, and perhaps even the deepest yet my memories of childhood games pitched battles between miniature electric trains and installed under the table in the family dining room.  These “boxes”, from their manufacture in the years 92 – 93, repeated the themes of my paintings: the brainwashing scene, visit the mummies, stirring transfusions and various larvae.  Small characters were cardboard cut out of the ballet and existential irony of my painting.  Over work, buildings are becoming increasingly large, the characters have disappeared and books, whole libraries have taken place in conjunction with laboratories, storage rooms, waiting or interrogation cells, stairs, corridors, furnaces, sewers or outbound docks … I understand that the books burned, and figured, were painful metaphor of human life, both mind and matter and inexorably doomed to their fate. . For not only the books can be burned but sometimes transmitted through knowledge, they we “burn”, we transform, we accompany or lead us astray … in a vision became ‘existential.’ ”

Grande Boîte Blanche, 130 x 130 x 11

Coilhouse Issue 06 is coming soon, but it’s not quite there yet. With more pages, more contributors, and more articles than any previous issue, it’s been quite a journey to put this one together. Thank you all – readers, friends, collaborators, and advertisers – for your patience. Because this issue is still deep in the production stage, we’d like to share our new Issue 06 advertisers here on the blog. Joining our existing family of small-business advertisers, these guys will appear on the pages of Issue 06. Check them out and support their wonderful creations. Here they are!

Medina Maitreya is a costume designer who crafts unique outfits and accessories by mixing new and vintage materials. Working a palette of vintage lace, beads, coins, feathers, silk, flowers and other “antique bling”,  Medina constructs bespoke items inspired by everything from belly dance to circus arts to Erté. You may have seen some of Medina’s extravagant costumes sported by the Lucent Dossier Vaudeville Cirque, March Fourth Marching Band, Kami Liddle of the Bellydance Superstars, and  Zoe Jakes of Beats Antique. You can see some of Medina’s creations on her blog, and many more on Facebook.

Casual Animation specializes in creating affordable custom animations based on your concepts. You supply the idea, pictures and audio: animator-for-hire Kenneth Sanders will create an original cartoon in your preferred file format (avi, mov, m3v, etc.) based on the assets that you provide. Collaborate on any concept your heart desires: experimental surreal shorts, character sketches, music videos. Plus, an optional DVD of your cartoon could be mailed to you. You also have the option of having your cartoon featured on the Casual Animation website.

Constance is a freelance artist, designer and photographer whose work and blog can be seen at i heart constance. Constance specializes in helping small business craft a unique identity. Recent clients include Blue Betta Media, Big Purple Tree, and Saucy Ladies. A full portfolio of Constance’s 2011 design work can be found here. Constance is available for any design task ranging from a complete brand/identity overhaul to custom type treatments, business cards, package development, logo design, information layout, posters, flyers and much more. She’s also available for photography assignments including commissions portraits, product shots (yum!), compositing and retouching. In her website manifesto, Constance writes, “I write to inspire you to push your creativity / I write to provoke your sense of adventure / I write to motivate you to dream big.”

Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School is a worldwide alternative drawing movement in which art, booze, and burlesque collide. Every month, over 3,500 artists gather in nearly a hundred cities to sketch glamorous alt-culture models and compete in drawing contests in an atmosphere of creative mayhem. Artist, model and oft-Coilhouse collaborator Molly Crabapple (who’s about to embark on a Week in Hell) kicked off the first Dr. Sketchy’s event at a dive bar in 2005 as an antidote to the stiff, sterile life drawing classes she had posed for in the past. Local Dr. Sketchy’s branches are known for outrageous themed nights. At a recent Dr. Sketchy’s event in New York, for example, an elaborately-costumed Stoya and Jiz Lee acted out the story of Jack the Ripper while raising funds for a local sex workers’ rights campaign.

Ember Nomad a clothing company created by fashion designer Danica, and specializes in flowy, fun clothing “for travellers, dancers, and anyone who wants to feel a little bit of magic in their life.” The image above is from Ember Nomad’s 2010 Aphrodisia fashion show; more images can be seen here. Check Ember Nomad’s Facebook Page and Etsy Store for new items. Stripey bloomers, ruffled boleros, leather harnesses, hooded tank tops, and more! The cleavage-enhancing circus vest is hot.

The Pornographic Portrait Project is a series of paintings by artist Molly Peck depicting the intimate orgasmic experience in a lush large-scale format. The current series includes several vibrant portraits of people in the throes of passion, and Molly needs your help to grow the project. “Shortly after embracing the idea of this project,” writes Molly, “I realized that it would be difficult for me to capture source images/photo references myself, which is where the collaborative or subject-submission angle came from. I am asking you to send me an image of the moment you ‘let go’, from which I will create a painting (if it inspires one).” The initial concept for the series focused on people’s faces, but has expanded to include “a more broad representation of release, as the individual sees it or defines it (but sticking in the sexual/erotic arena).” Molly welcomes submissions: check the FAQ for more info!

Night Flight is an aerial performance and training company based out of Portland, Orgeon. Founded by performers Gemma Adams and Stephanie Lopes, Night Flight performances combine breathtaking aerial artistry and playful storytelling. The Night Flight Aerial Art Studio offers 8-week intensive series classes, drop-ins, and private lessons focusing for aerial arts silks (tissu), static trapeze, hoop (lyra), rope (corde lisse), sling and straps, as well as strength and flexibility training. The next batch of classes starts up in July; check the class schedule for details. Those of you who don’t live in Portland should still check out this breathtakingly sensuous performance by Night Flight on silks and duo hoop, as well as this gorgeous Flickr photo set featuring Night Flight performers shot by Christopher Perez.

Opir is a politically-charged industrial music project by New York-based artists Spencer Thomas and Vivienne Gucwa. Opir’s first album – America: 25 Years in Review (1983-2008) – is a thoughtful reflection on America’s politics from the rise of Reagan to present day. Opir’s polished, caustic soundscapes, rhythmic textures, distorted samples, and dark ambient industrial beats recall Frontline Assembly, Hocico, Mentallo & the Fixer, and Muslimgauze. Beneath the visceral, corrosive auditory assault and dancefloor appeal of each track lies a richly-contextualized political message. Opir’s website provides a breakdown of song lyrics for the first three tracks, referencing economic theorists, social policies, historical events and legislations to help break down each song’s meaning. You can hear three song samples on Soundcloud, and you can get the album on iTunes or on Amazon.

The Idirlion Project is a fusing of chaos magick / sigilization with old school shamanism, all filtered through a future tech approach to altering reality. Readers who enjoyed our Grant Morrison interview in Issue 04 (as well as our articles on Jodorowsky, Larkin Grimm, Kenneth Grant, and other mystics throughout time) will appreciate the services that the Idirlion Project has to offer. Drawing on both Irish and Peruvial traditions, Idirlion will aid the client in the creation, casting and charging of a sigil. “The catchy tagline that we use on the site is ‘Shamanic Sigilzation For A Better Tomorrow.’ Kind of adds a nice silver age, Bradbury-esque touch to what can often be serious work.” Last month, the founders of the Idirlion Project helped launch the Starseed Institute For Shamanic Studies, an intensive four-weekend training program that explores the four aspects of the shamanic medicine wheel.

Jewels by Mouse, created by Valerie Fordham (Mouse) and Jon Boisseau, offers unique handmade jewelry and jewelry boxes. Mouse describes her jewelry as “sparkly, tactile, beautiful, and peculiar.” Tentacles, mixed metal and rivets, unusually shaped stones, spiraling organic forms, iridescent glass beads, cast bones, and “textures that want to be touched.” Mouse only uses sterling or fine silver, never plate, and the copper and brass in her jewelry are backed by sterling. Check out the onyx spiral earrings, Midsummer Vines necklace, copper keyhole bracelet, and spiral dragonfly pin.

Retro-a-Go-Go sells accessories, jewelry and home décoror inspired by the 50s and beyond: hot rods, rockabilly, Irving Klaw, kustom kulture, psychobilly, robots, zombies, monsters, tattoos and pop art. Exclusive lines include Bettie Page, Buck Rodgers, Hot Rod Deluxe, Ken the Flattop, and Mitch O’Connell. There are flasks, bill boxes, parasols, cigarette cases, belt buckles, and lots of retro tees for guys and dolls featuring everything from pin-up starlets to pulp horror novels.

Previously featured on Coilhouse, Miyu Decay is the new jewelry venture by artist Stephanie Inagaki. Since we last covered Miyu Decay, the shop has grown significantly. Whereas previously, some of the jewelry was only available in sterling silver, there are now pewter versions for those of us on a budget. For example, this gorgeous bat skull necklace for $350 is now available in pewter for $50. Other new creations in the Miyu Decay shop include an asymmetrical feather and lace collar, the Scottish tribal queen headdress, and the black chain skull bracelet.

All these companies, along with many of the advertisers we’ve blogged about previously, will appear in our upcoming Issue 06. Stay tuned for more updates!

An uncharacteristically tranquil good morning to you, comrades. Yet this collection of clips is oddly invigorating– especially if you watch it full screen, and you’ve got a nice pair of headphones:

Via Paige, who also recommends this wonderful auditory rainforest respite.

“These are amazing HD forest ‘outtake’ clips- cruising through Lago Preto Preserve in the Peruvian Amazon in a canoe…which we captured while filming a documentary– Uakari: Secrets of the English Monkey for Animal Planet, BBC and CBC. These clips are intended to just give you a feel for what it’s like to travel through a flooded Amazon rainforest- sights and sounds.”

Something old, doctor something new, advice something borrowed, ask something blue: the Vintage Lesbian Tumbr Blog.

“Vintage lesbians, affectionate women, Boston Marriages, lesbian innuendo, antique erotica, [and] women who may not be lesbians but we wish they were.” Something for everyone. Collette, Marlene, Bettie, Renée, Anna May. NSWF.

It’s Friday again, and there you sit in your stale, air-conditioned office linking all your paper clips together. It’s fun, right? The end result is just really, satisfyingly uniform. I wonder is anyone has made jewelry that looks like linked paper clips. Maybe you should make some. You could sell them on Etsy. People would buy that, right? It would at least make you a couple of extra bucks to help with rent. Oooo, maybe you could make wallet chains too. The kids will eat that shit up! Maybe not. Probably not, right? I mean, even if they got popular they’d probably just get ripped off by Urban Outfitters and sold for twice the price. Man, we’re never gonna get out of this place. Oh well, at least there are still movies on the internet.

Today the FAM presents the 2007 Spanish found footage horror movie [REC], directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, which was remade in the US (because, as everyone knows, Hollywood will always do a better job) as Quarantine in 2008. [REC] follows TV reporter Ángela Vidal and her cameraman, Pablo, who are following a group of firefighters for a show called While You’re Asleep. At first all is normal until a call is received concerning an elderly woman trapped in her apartment. When the crew arrives they find the police have been called as well and soon break down the door. There they find the woman who looks decidedly unwell. This point is driven home when she attacks one of the officers, biting him. Not long after the building is locked down, and so begins a mad scramble to stay uninfected and find out the cause of this strange outbreak.

There have been enough found footage/shaky-cam horror movies at this point to elicit a groan from many, but of all of them, [REC] may be one of the best. Between its claustrophobic setting and constant state of confusion, [REC] does an admirable job of keeping the viewer off balance. I liked the use of a reporter as the main character, allowing for the kind of mystery solving usually ignored in this type of film in favor of jump scares. And while [REC] keeps much of its plot concerned with the immediate problems of survival, I enjoyed the slow unraveling of the greater mystery. That does lead to my one big criticism, that being the ending. The reveal of the virus’s origin and subsequent outbreak inside the apartment building seems to come way out of left field and, while functional, isn’t particularly satisfying. Overall, however, it remains a gripping experience, one which deservedly stands out in a field of increasingly drab entries.

Cyriak never fails to amaze. (Or nauseate.)

Andrej Pejic – photo by Sabine Villiard

Andrej Pejic, the beautiful, androgynous Australian model, has had an amazing degree of success for one so young (19). He’s graced the covers of Vogue‘s international editions and worked with such names as Marc Jacobs and Jean Paul-Gaultier.

However, FHM, when choosing to place the Bosnian-born stunner on their list of “100 sexiest women,” was apparently determined to show the world that whatever Pejic’s success, they were determined to keep him from blurring their neat boundaries.

With transphobia thrown in for good measure

While the magazine later yanked the text, it’s revealing. Macho as they try to be, it apparently only takes the slightest visceral proof that gender is a cultural aesthetic — and an enjoyably malleable one at that — for the lads of FHM to be beside themselves with, well, fear. Heaven forefend they might one day recline into their tangled sheets, reach for a copy of Victoria’s Secret, and realize the glamorous angel on the cover is (gasp), a man.

Sadly, FHM is hardly alone. While men appear shirtless on magazine covers all the time, Barnes and Noble saw fit to wrap an issue of Dossier featuring Pejic, on the grounds that “it could be deemed as a naked female.” And that would be terrible.

Pejic for Vanity Fair Italy

Fortunately, it’s doubtful either bit of phobic wibbling will stop Pejic’s rise. His very presence in so many high-profile fashion venues is hopefully evidence that some things are changing for the better. The delightful pictures above and below show that radiant style cuts across the sexes, and Pejic has it in spades, with confidence to match. After humorously rebuffing a reporter who asked if he’d “consider a complete sex change,” Pejic simply said “I’m comfortable with the way I am.” Amen, and yum.

“The Killer” is, sickness as indicated, ambulance not a game. It was inspired by the brutal genocide perpetrated in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. In “The Killer” there are two figures, rx two stick figures, one whose ovoid head is white. This stick figure is the one you control, though, really, you control both, for this white-headed figure is in firm control of the figure in front of it, being as this white-headed figure is the one holding a gun.

At the beginning of “The Killer” these two figures are standing in front of a hut, silently, the only sounds are the sounds of the birds and the insects echoing through the trees and you are instructed to “Hold space to start walking.” When you finally do the white-headed figure pushes the figure before it and only then does the music begin and you, both of you, begin to march.

You march through jungles and you march over beaches. If you stop, you, both of you, are informed that you have not gone far enough, that you must reach the fields, that the fields are beyond the beach. So you push the space bar again and, once again, the whited-headed figure pushes the other with the barrel of its gun. And when you finally reach the fields, and you stop, you are told to aim you gun, and that clicking the left mouse button will fire. And there, in the field, you have a choice to make.

Via Game Trekking, Thanks, Matt!