Halloween is over and, having finally awoken from a glucose induced stupor, the FAM returns with a new offering, devoid of the supernatural thrills that occupied this space for the past two weeks. Today we present In the Realms of the Unreal, the 2004 documentary directed by Jessica Yu about famed outsider artist and reclusive crazy-person Henry Darger. Darger, born on April 12, 1892 was a janitor in Chicago who occupied a second-floor room on Chicago’s North Side, at 851 W. Webster Avenue, for forty years, beginning in 1930 until his death on April 13, 1973. It was only then that his landlords discovered what he had been up to all those years.

It turns out that Darger spent most of his free time writing and drawing. His magnum opus, and the work that would gain him the majority of his posthumous fame, is entitled The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, a mammoth work comprised of 15,145 single-spaced, typed pages, several hundred illustrations, and a number of scroll-like paintings, all of which employ extensive use of images taken or traced from magazines and children’s books and an obvious transgender streak — the children found therein not only largely unclothed but also many in possession of male genitalia. This work was in addition to a 5,084 page autobiography entitled The History of My Life (which, incidentally, spends 4,672 pages on the fictional account of a tornado named “Sweetie Pie”), 10,000 handwritten pages of a second fictional work called Crazy House: Further Adventures in Chicago (featuring the same Vivian sisters from Realms and placing them in Chicago during the same time period occupied by Realms), and a number of journals including a daily record of the weather over a span of ten years.

Realms itself is not easily summed up, though Wikipedia does a fairly good job:

In the Realms of the Unreal postulates a large planet around which Earth orbits as a moon and where most people are Christian (mostly Catholic). The majority of the story concerns the adventures of the daughters of Robert Vivian, seven sisters who are princesses of the Christian nation of Abbieannia and who assist a daring rebellion against the evil John Manley’s regime of child slavery imposed by the Glandelinians. Children take up arms in their own defense and are often slain in battle or viciously tortured by the Glandelinian overlords. The elaborate mythology also includes a species called the “Blengigomeneans” (or Blengins for short), gigantic winged beings with curved horns who occasionally take human or part-human form, even disguising themselves as children. They are usually benevolent, but some Blengins are extremely suspicious of all humans, due to Glandelinian atrocities.

The impetus for Realms, according to his autobiography, was the loss of a photograph of all things. Darger was a lifelong hoarder of magazine and newspaper clippings and one of the most important it seems was a portrait from the Chicago Daily News from May 9, 1911 of five-year-old girl named Elsie Paroubek who disappeared on April 8th and was found a month later, murdered. When it went missing, Darger believed it was among a number of clippings he suspected were stolen from his work locker. The loss of the photograph upset him so much that he used it as inspiration for the assassination of child labor leader Annie Aronburg, which would spark the main conflict of Realms.

This, finally, brings us to the feature. Yu’s film does an admirable job of covering Darger, especially considering the roadblocks involved in trying to document the life of a recluse. Considering there are only three known photographs of the man, she gets the most mileage by animating scenes from Realms with voiceover. There are a few interviews with neighbors, but the majority of the film are found in these segments and they are endlessly fascinating. In fact, considering the number of sources we have, Yu’s effort is likely to be the best anyone is going to be able to produce about the man. Depending on one’s viewpoint this may be a best or worst case scenario. At best all that is left is one’s art, there is no personality to explain or influence opinion; the viewer is given only the product of the artist’s creativity. On the other hand, the subject matter is so strange that the viewer may spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to discern the mindset of the creator. In the case of Darger, I would say that for most (and I would probably include myself in this) it is the latter and for that reason In the Realms of the Unreal can be as frustrating in its limitations as it is compelling.

Via Slim –who says he was reminded of it when he read this piece by a mother defending her five-year-old son’s Daphne costume– comes this awesome sauce:

This poster can be purchased on the cheap, or downloaded for free at the Crimethinc site as part of their “Gender Subversion Kit”.

“Part poster, part zine, and made to be deployed in an endless number of environments, the Gender Subversion Kit is a 22″x14” two-color poster on the outside and a line art illustrated gender-fuck coloring book road map for both kids and adults on the inside. Inspired by and adapted from the boys will be girls will be boys . . . coloring book by JT and Irit, we took the parts we loved the most, made a few small changes, and mass produced it on the cheap.”

Felled Forest Reliquary, 2010. Oil and egg tempera on shaped panel. 30 x 39 x 2 inches; 76 x 99 x 5 cm.

Madeline von Foerster, whose incredible work we’ve previously featured on the blog, and in Issue 02 of Coilhouse Magazine, has just completed a new series of paintings, called Reliquaries.

“This new series of artworks grows out of the artist’s fascination with reliquaries: the jewel-covered statues and treasure chests where remains of sainted persons – from bones, to scraps of clothing, to vials of blood – are enshrined. Old, beautiful, and mysterious, reliquaries often become objects of worship themselves. The impulse to preserve and make precious seems to represent a common human urge, spanning across many cultures, and not only confined to religion: we create reliquaries for vanquished cultures in our Natural History Museums, and living reliquaries, in the form of zoos, for animals all but extinct in the wild.”

The Red Thread, 2010. 48 x 62 inches. Oil and Egg Tempera on Panel.

Consistently, Madeline von Foerster’s oil and egg tempera compositions are technically masterful and emotionally powerful. And she keeps upping her game, refining her message.  Viewing these most recent works, I’m haunted by something she said a couple of years ago in our interview for the magazine:

“I am incredibly pessimistic about the future of this earth. As E.O. Wilson describes, we are hurtling towards “The Age of Loneliness,” the coming time when half of the world’s species will be extinct, and all the magnificent wilderness denuded and torn. Till my dying breath I will rage and fight against that future, but I am only one person…”

She went on to explain that in spite of everything, she still has hope. In her loving depictions of endangered and extinct wildlife, that message of hope is clearly conveyed, along with urgency, and grief.

As jaw-dropping as these pieces appear onscreen, they must be even more astonishing in person, so German comrades, achtung: The Reliquaries series will be showing this winter at the Strychnin Gallery in Berlin, November 12th through December 18th.

Ex Mare, 2010. Oil and egg tempera on shaped panel. 30 x 39 x 2 inches; 76 x 99 x 5 cm.

“Wishery” is the newest track from sample magician Nick Bertke a.k.a. Pogo. Using Walt Disney’s 1937 classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Bertke expertly chops it to bits and constructs a mesmerizing trip-hop soundscape. Absent for the past year due, it seems, to a contract with Disney, it’s good to see the man who brought us “Alice” return, especially in such spectacular fashion.

“858” by Jessica Joslin

Our darling Jessica‘s been keeping busy! She’ll be exhibiting an array of gorgeous new work at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Hollywood, November 5 – 28, 2010.

Jessica Joslin’s Hybrids show is a circus of oddities, a mixed-media menagerie of unexpected creatures. A whimsical cat in a red leather harness harness pulls a polycephalic partner on a wooden cart. An exquisite two headed tropical bird with lush brass plumage preens on it’s perch and a troupe of monkey-cat hybrids engage in mysterious shenanigans. Hybrids is a menagerie of distinctive creations, its frolicsome fauna beckon you to come see the show!

The reception’s being held on Friday, Nov 5th, from 8-11pm. Book signing to precede from 7-8pm. LA conclave, be sure to go and cuddle Jessica and blow some air kisses her critters’ way! (Especially Clio & Loci. Yours truly met ’em in Arizona earlier this year, and fell hopelessly in lurrrrve.)

“Helios” by Jessica Joslin (front and side views).

A trailer for those who appreciate moving images of complex, obsolete machines doing their thing. Linotype: The Film is a look at the Linotype printing machine. Invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler it revolutionized typesetting upon it’s arrival in 1886, allowing for a much smaller number of workers to set type. Calling to mind an enormous typewriter, its inner-working are best left to Wikipedia:

The Linotype machine operator enters text on a 90-character keyboard. The machine assembles matrices, which are molds for the letter forms, to a line. The assembled line is then cast as a single piece, called a slug, of type metal in a process known as “hot metal” typesetting. The matrices are then returned to the type magazine from which they came. This allows much faster typesetting and composition than original hand composition in which operators place down one pre-cast metal letter, punctuation mark or space at a time. – The name of the machine comes from the fact that it produces an entire line of metal type at once, hence a line-o-type.

Directed by Douglas Wilson, the trailer for Linotype features some top-notch machine porn, shot by Brandon Goodwin with some excellent sound by Jess Heugel as well as looking at the people who adore these mechanical relics. Just my kind of movie.

Update: Wilson has set up a Kickstarter to help fund the project. If you enjoyed the trailer you can donate a couple of dollars to help get this bad boy made and get some cool swag in return.

Via DRAWN!

Made popular by the trailers for The Social Network, the Scala & Kolacny Brothers’ Choir’s cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” gets a suitably disturbing video by Alex Heller. Using a Nikon D60 to take 1554 pictures, Miss Heller gives us the story of four, malevolent Barbies and the chubby outsider who wants more than anything to be just like them.

Via Kuriositas : The Daily What

Just in time for Goth Christmas™, Zo has released two gorgeous prints, available over at her site, Biorequiem. Featured are the Snake Charmer illustration from Issue 04, as well as the ravishing Mommy-Four-Legs, originally created for Travis Louie’s group art show, titled “Monster?” The artworks are available for a limited time as  8.5 x 11 prints on velvet photo rag paper, and can be purchased separately or together for a special price. Details here.

Graham Annable (previously featured on Coilhouse) presents his new short, “Performance”, an incredible recreation of Meredith Yayanos’s stage show in his signature, animated style.

It’s the week before Halloween people, so that means horror movies on the FAM. All horror from here to the witching hour (or twice, for those counting their Fridays). Today the FAM presents a double feature unabashedly ripped off from TCM’s programming schedule from the past month, comprised of two fine films from the classic Hammer Film Productions: The Devil’s Bride (or The Devil Rides Out in the UK) from 1968 and The Gorgon from 1964, both directed by Terence Fisher and both starring Christopher Lee, along with fellow Hammer superstar Peter Cushing in The Gorgon. Additionally, Devil’s Bride features a screenplay by Richard Matheson (author of I Am Legend and What Dreams May Come, among others, as well as a host of well-known Twilight Zone episodes) based on the novel The Devil Rides Out by Devil Dennis Wheatley.

Hammer is perhaps best known for their slightly more graphic takes on famous Universal monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy, as well as interpretations of The Phantom of the Opera, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Robin Hood, and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which featured a troupe of actors (most notably Lee and Cushing) and directors perhaps the most famous of whom was Fisher. The studio is also responsible for a great number of films without the benefit of well-known subjects and The Devil’s Bride and The Gorgon are two of the best examples of this.

The Devil’s Bride, for all it’s new-age influenced Satan-worshiping cheese is surprisingly effective, not only for Charles Gray’s turn as the villainous Mocata but for the quiet menace of the entity who he serves. Indeed, the best scenes feature mostly silent specters, such as the demon in the observatory. The Gorgon may be even more of a success, transplanting the traditional Greek myth of the Gorgon to turn-of-the-century Middle Europe and features some absolutely stunning work from cinematographer Michael Reed. And while the titular Gorgon may seem campy by today’s standards, she is incredibly effective in the brief glimpses leading up to her reveal.

Hammer’s horror films are some of the defining examples of the genre and, at the time, were shocking in their depictions of violence and sexuality. By the end of the 60s Hammer’s formula had lost most of its punch however, and the release of low-budget films like The Night of the Living Dead and Hollywood productions like The Wild Bunch made the studio’s offerings look downright tame. Still, the quality of the acting and production combined with an almost perfect level of camp makes these films a nessecity in any horror buff’s education.