Many informative Irving Penn obituaries have popped up on the web over the past few hours – my favorite is this piece by the New York Times. There were many things I didn’t know about him! I was delighted to learn that, like me, he had the whole Jersey-Philly thing going on. His brother Arthur was the director of the film Bonnie and Clyde. Before falling into photography, he wanted to travel to Mexico with the hopes of forging a career as a painter. He joined the army, and worked as an ambulance driver.
Irving Penn lived an active, creative life, producing new work right up until his death. Let Penn’s legacy inspire us all, for this is the way that life should be lived. It doesn’t matter if you’re 70, 80 or 90: stay curious about the world, never give up your vision, and always continue to strive to do your best.
More inspiring images by Penn taken at various points in the past 60 years, after the jump.
Asgarda. Mountain-dwelling, scythe-wielding Amazonian cult? Paramilitary defenders of Our Dark Lady of the Orange Revolution? Exactly 37 new Asgarda fan clubs will pop up in Japan by the time I finish writing this post, and we still won’t be any closer to knowing who they really are.
Recently, a photo essay on Asgarda by Guillaume Herbaut in Planet Magazine captured imaginations all over the blogosphere. Coverage has ranged from cautious (Xeni: “sounds too awesome to be true in this cold, cruel world”) to shamelessly sensationalistic (English Russia: “A French explorer has found a group of amazons hiding in the woods”). Like most, I want there to be a legendary tribe of ass-kicking warrior princesses living in the mountains of Ukraine. I’m just surprised at how little fact-checking has gone into this tale, across the board. It’s worse than usual. For example, in their original article, Planet Mag writes, “in the Ukraine, a country where females are victims of sexual trafficking and gender oppression, a new tribe of empowered women is emerging.” Over at The Frisky,this statement quickly transforms to: “the women have seceded from society because sexual trafficking is rampant in Eastern European countries.” My old journalism professor would’ve pulled out fingernails for that one. On the other hand, there’s been a steady chorus of people calling “fake,” saying that this is a PR stunt for some movie, or that they’re just a bunch of Pennsylvanian LARPers who’ve taken it one step too far. This post is for them, too. Don’t be afraid to believe! Below, my humble attempts to separate the facts from the fiction about this all-female purported warrior tribe.
The photos are real. Herbaut is a gifted photographer who has captured enduring images from Chernobyl, Ciudad Juarez (harrowing & NSFW), the city of Auschwitz as it is today, and Hiroshima. He’s done fashion potraits of “trendy Mollahs” from Iran for Elle, and documented the victims of family vendettas is Albania. His objectivity as a photojournalist when it comes to Asgarda may be up for debate, but the man knows how to tell a story. Sixteen captioned images of Asgarda can be found on his page, under the title “Return of the Amazons.” More photos by Herbaut of Asgarda appear in the series Ukraine’s Cossacks.
Some excellent detective work by Ghoul Next Door has uncovered the origins of this 101-year-old photo. The stunning image was brought to our attention by guest blogger Angeliska, who writes, “I’ve become totally obsessed with this carte de visite depicting Maria Germanova of the Moscow Arts Theatre, costumed for her role [as the fairy] in Blue Bird. She is my perfect style icon, now and forever.”
Unfortunately, the photographs of the actors are all that remain of this 1908 premiere of Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird, produced by Stanislavsky. A descriptive play-by-play of the performance can be found in the 1920 book The Russian Theater Under the Revolution by Oliver Sayler (thanks, Google book search!), but all other images of this art noveau-inspired production have been lost to time, despite Sayler’s valiant attempts to preserve more for posterity, recounted in the book:
I asked Stanislavsky eagerly for photographs of scenes from “The Blue Bird” or else for the original designs of the scenic artist so that I might have them copied… the photographs, I was told, were not available – except those of the players themselves – for the originals had been made by Fischer, a German, and had been destroyed in the pogrom at the beginning of the war in 1914. And in the difficult times Russia has undergone since then, no others have been made. When I pressed my point and asked about the orignal designs, the firm, square but kindly face of my host carried a passing glance of embarassed modesty and then admitted that there were no designs. He had conceived them himself and had personally directed the artist, V. E. Yevgenoff, in the execution of the settings.
Yep, 1908 is definitely going to the top of my “If I Had a Time Machine” list. Craving more images after discovering Germanova’s fairy, I did a bit of searching on the Russian web and uncovered the images below (from an Ogonyok article about Blue Bird). After the jump, a full-body shot of Germanova looking like a pre-Raphaelite sorceress.
We can’t all be Cherie Priest on the first try. But if the storyline of your latest dystopian/retro-futuristic tour-de-force has got you stumped, insert one thrupenny bit into the Electro-Plasmic Hydrocephalic Genre-Fiction Generator 2000, and watch inspiration emerge from the æther. Three early attempts the got me the following tales:
Your title is: “The Blackpunks”
In a leather-clad set from Road Warrior, a young brooding loner stumbles across an exiled angel which spurs him into conflict with computer viruses made real, with the help of a sarcastic female techno-geek and her closet full of assault rifles, culminating in a heroic sacrifice that no one will ever remember.
Your title is: “The Chronotrons”
In a VR-simulated Victorian Britain, a young student of metaphysics stumbles across a magic diadem which spurs him into conflict with a profit-obsessed corporation, with the help of a tomboyish female mechanic and her welding gear, culminating in a philosophical argument punctuated by violence.
Your title is: “The Cybermancers”
In a neo-noir one-way spaceflight, a young farm boy with dreams stumbles across an encrypted data feed which spurs him into conflict with murderous robots, with the help of a shape-shifting female assassin and her wacky pet, culminating in authorial preaching through the mouths of the characters.
If you wish to see the guts of the machine, there’s an attractive diagram – the Wondermark Fiction Generator – on which the above engine is based. Written/designed by the super-talented David Malki, and coded by Liam Cooke.
Gorgeous design (reminds me of the Dollar Dreadful), and a fun way to get the gears turning when it comes to new fiction, despite (or because of?) the obvious critique that’s going on here. [Via Milly, thanks!]
There are some days when one cup of coffee, can of Jolt, or installment of Better than Coffee just isn’t enough. This Monday was such a day for me, until I stumbled across this lost masterpiece of punk rock. Hot on the heels of this morning’s regular BTC installment (Mer discussing the infectious Hindi rock n’ roll ditty Eena Meena Deeka), here’s an extra shot for all you late risers and morning zombies. Ladies and gentlemen, The Queenhaters!
This punk parody appeared on the Canadian sketch comedy show SCTV in 1983, featuring Martin Short as the lead singer, Andrea Martin as the lead guitarist/back-up vocalist, Eugene Levy as the second guitarist, Joe Flaherty on bass, and John Candy on drums. It later received its very own cover by Mudhoney.
Via Milly, who adds that she totally wishes that these guys were real.
Hey guys, remember our big “Vote for Coilhouse” effort from about week ago? Well, the three finalists have been announced, and unfortunately, we weren’t selected, despite your incredible feat of getting us into the top 10 out of over 4,000 nominees in under 24 hours with your votes. The finalists are Sacred Wind Communications (a telecom company), Beacon Paint & Hardware (I was excited when I originally misread this as “BACON PAINT”) and Happybaby organic baby foods. We wish them all the best during the remainder of the competition.
Actually, this is a huge relief. For the past week, we’ve all been kind of second-guessing ourselves every time we made a blog post, asking: “is this too risqué? Should we go easy with the gross/weird stuff, just this week, to avoid scaring the judges away from picking us as a finalist?” For some, the pressure was too great: Ross kept writing and deleting draft after draft until he just snapped, covering the walls of his office with writing in feces.
Now that all the suspense is over, it’s a huge relief to feel like we can write about anything we want (which most of us ended up doing last week anyway) without feeling any apprehension or guilt. Anything I personally might’ve felt too cautious to blog about last week, I will blog about in my next few posts, with interest! I kick off this trend with a song by one of our great heroes, Bob Flanagan, from Kirby Dick’s documentary Sick. If you don’t know who Mr. Flanagan was, the song explains it all. Much more about Bob Flanagan at a later date.
In the end, grant or no grant, we’ll make it. It would’ve been easier and faster with that funding, but we learned through this “Vote for Coilhouse” experience that we have something more valuable than any amount money that any large company could bestow upon us: a caring, kind, loyal group of friends & readers that was willing to support us when we asked for help. Also, we got a brief taste of what it’s like to feel beholden to a large company for any kind of support, and we did not like that feeling at all. We don’t need them to make it; we just need you guys. Thank you, all, from the bottom of our hearts.
“It was a terrible, indescribable thing… a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light.” – H. P. Lovecraft
Many thanks to Paul Komoda, ever the friend of Coilhouse, for pointing out the eerie similarities between this 1952 advertisement for vegetable-flavored salad Jell-O, spotted in a SocImages post discussing “how tastes are shaped by history” (see also: “The Social Construction of Prunes“), and this 1936 cover of Astounding Stories for Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness.”
Our issue 02 cover girl – 3’10” spitfire, comedienne and burlesque sensation Selene Luna – is celebrating her birthday this weekend! There’s no big party, but Selene is asking fans and friends to come and see her new one-woman show, which runs for only two nights, titled Chiquita!. In addition to Selene’s stand-up routine, the show also features a dance hit premiere written by actress/transgender activist Calpernia Addams, a video premiere by legendary alt-culture portraitist Austin Young, and much more. A brief description from Brown Paper Tickets, where you can find showtimes and ticketing information:
Luna pushes the envelope through dark humor and camp, weaving together a lifetime of adversity from her roots in Tijuana, Mexico to humorous tales of Hollywood that can only be told by a little person. Chiquita! is hilariously straightforward as Luna addresses topics most are too embarrassed to ask a little person. Luna has carved a niche for herself and continues to break the stereotypes of little people in entertainment. She continues to bring her magnetic appeal to broader audiences and plans to shake things up in a big way!
Even if you can’t be there, there’s tons of new Selene Luna hilarity to enjoy since we last blogged about this gutsy performer. Selene has recently teamed up with comedienne Nadya Ginsburg to co-write and release some short videos, which can be found on Selene’s YouTube channel. My favorite is their turn as Madonna and Lourdes, below:
Behold: my dream lair. Unfortunately, being located in Brooklyn, this loft probably costs a gazillion dollars. Still, one can dream!
The furnishings in this image, however, are far too benign. You all know that I’m decorating-challenged, but even I can see that the tremendous potential of this space been wasted. I’m not saying that we need to completely goth it up in here with coffin furniture and I.V. bag-styled lamps – love that stuff, but not for this. Still, I’d much rather see this space looking like it belongs to a dignified shut-in taxidermist, and not someone’s rich aunt.
So, Coilhomeboys and girls, how would you design this space if it were yours? For more jealousy inspiration, see below. For some reason, though, I’m tempted to skip out on the cabinet-of-curiosities thing altogether and make it totally disco.
Caption: “The Germans weren’t very afraid of the mechanical bears.”
There’s a great column at Russia! magazine titled Live From LJ. Every week, intrepid blogger Marina Galperina wades through the radioactive cesspool of the Russian blogosphere (which “conveniently, if bafflingly, revolves around LJ.”) This week, Marina discovers this incredible gem:
Ru-Lj community fail_art apologizes for their legacy of humorous-to-obscene scribbles left in textbooks by former students (or possibly, modern day forgeries), adding some “context” to the dull old pastorial and wartime pictures with ridiculous nudity, blood, peasants with nun-chucks and various insults to the Russian army. Response: “My eyes and stomach hurt.” Ditto. [Link, NSWF]
A selection of hand-picked personal favorites, after the jump!
