Harpers Bazaar UK employed Jake and Dinos Chapman who, with the help of photographer Michelangelo di Battista and illustrator Jon Rogers, produced this fantastic set for their November issue, which focuses on the always stunning Claudia Schiffer and features the supermodel in a variety of Grade-A pulp situations such as “Femme Fatale With Gun”, “Sexy Girl Tied Up and Being Threatened by Hand With Whip”, and “Sexy Girl Bound and Gagged Being Threatened by Ghoul”. I have linked the entire series after the jump, in standard, tiny Coilhouse image form but you should go here to see these in all their huge, scanned glory. I love them, but then, I’m a sucker for stuff like this. The pulp fiction thing. Not, you know, the sexy girl bound and gagged thing.
Three cheers for Oakland-based photographer Neil Girling! Longtime readers may recall his beautiful work from this 2007 post about California’s thriving underground circus scene. More recently, Neil braved scorching temperatures and hoards of cheerfully chafing, corseted quaintrelles to bring Coilhouse the following photo essay about the second annual Handcar Regatta. A tip o’ the topper to you, good sir, and thanks again. ~Mer
September 27th saw the second installment of the Great Handcar Regatta, an afternoon of nonsensical anachronism, whimsy and ingenuity in Santa Rosa, CA. Though temperatures burned hot in the triple-digits, many thousands of spectators and participants flooded the Railroad Square historic park, perusing vendors, sipping refreshments, seeing live music, and — of course — watching the races.
Rock*N*Roll Sunday School Fixed Gear, powered solely by running, crosses the finish line.
Official MC Les Claypool provided commentary to the thronging crowds, which were said to have reached nearly 10,000 (a keen-eyed friend said Tom Waits was among them), many of whom were dressed appropriately old-timey for the occasion.
Remember the Coilhouse ode to ruffs? And the slightly shorter ode to digital artist/photographer Natalie Shau? Well, here we have two great tastes that taste great together. I could easily see this image, titled Dominion, on the cover of Elegy. I love the colors, the wallpaper, the texture of the ruff. The waist is maybe a bit too Ralph Lauren-ish – if you’re going to make it that small, I feel like it should look obviously cinched, like Mr. Pearl – but I love everything else about it. Go Natalie! For more new work, check out her site.
Christ, again? Seriously, you knew your boss was crazy but this is just getting ridiculous. I mean, how many pictures of fucking Spiderman does one man need, really? They never publish more than two or three anyway. Bet the bastard probably jerks off to ’em at home. Asshole. Well screw him, you’ve got better things to do than indulge his weird fetishes. It’s time for the FAM.
For your enjoyment we present M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder or simply M as it was known here, Fritz Lang’s story of a murderer terrorizing Berlin. Considered by Lang to be his finest film (a sentiment I echo; Metropolis being a masterpiece of design but a mess of everything else) it helped to launch the career of Peter Lorre, previously known as a comedic actor, who would go on to be typecast as a villain for years afterwards. Many have suggested that the film was inspired by the case of Peter Kürten, “The Vampire of Düsseldorf” the serial killer and rapist who preyed on the citizens of Düsseldorf from February to November of 1929, a claim that Lang steadfastly denied.
This is a movie that always comes up when I discuss the current resurgence of so-called “torture porn”, films created by hacks with no idea how to direct a film. The opening scene of M is a tour de force of subtlety, the image of a balloon, entangled in telephone lines infinitely more effective than anything seen in the tenth installment of Saw or anything even remotely related to Eli Roth. They really don’t make them like this anymore.
Two photos from the series “Marcell” by Polish photographer Roksana Mical. I love this set, seemingly a chronicle of a plague doctor’s leisurely stroll through the woods or perhaps, more mysteriously, a record of some strange, elusive bird-like creature as it stalks through the desolate countryside. Mical’s photo’s all have a wonderful grain to them that helps to ground the images in reality which, in this case, only serves to accentuate the outlandishness of the subject.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand you’re done. Sitting back in your chair you take in the magnificent sight before you, satisfied that you have accomplished something today. Yep, no one can look at these perfectly symmetrical rows of paper clips, organized by size, and claim that you don’t do anything. No, you are a model of efficiency. Now, no matter what size paper clip a situation might require, you will be able to reach in your drawer and pluck it from it’s resting place, held by the smallest dab of adhesive from your glue stick. Truly this has been a stellar day; but what to do now? Well, why don’t you take a load off and feast your eyes on some toothsome filmage?
Today, the FAM presents master filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s Kumonosu-jō (literally Spider Web Castle) known here as Throne of Blood, a retelling of William Shakespeare’s MacBeth set in feudal Japan, starring the legendary Toshirō Mifune as Washizu Taketoki. Throne of Blood is considered one of Kurasawa’s best films and Mifune gives a standout performance, though his Taketoki comes across as less malevolent than Shakespeare’s MacBeth. An interesting fact to note is that Mifune’s death scene at the end of the film, in which his own archer’s riddle him with arrows, was filmed using real arrows. As he waves his arms in fear he is also signaling to the archers, telling them which direction he is going to move. If you’ve never watched a Kurosawa film, you owe it to yourself to take a look, it’s a brilliant piece of cinema from a man who made a career of producing some of the finest movies from Japan, or anywhere else for that matter.
MMMNNGGHPH. Browns, why must you insist upon torturing a grubby, low-rent gal like me with that ridiculous price tag?!
Related anecdote: A snarky acquaintance of mine back in NYC used to enjoy cornering club-going trustifarians who dared to don the “Unknown Pleasures” tee and making them squirm by demanding that they explain the image they were wearing. If their answer wasn’t knowledgeable enough to his liking, he’d trap them against the DJ booth and deliver lengthy lectures on pulsar theory, the film Stroszeck, or cocaine-in-a-condom drug mule death statistics.
This has been on the web for a couple of weeks but it bears mention here. “COMBO” is the newest animated graffiti film from Blu, capsule whose previous work “MUTO” became a YouTube sensation. This time he has collaborated with fellow artist David Ellis. There is something really fantastic about these films taking, salve as they do, shop traditional street art and, with the help of some video-assisted time manipulation, using it to create cartoons; treating buildings and courtyards as animation cels.
It’s been a long week hasn’t it? Busy too. It seems that your inbox is always full no matter how much work you do, like everyone is clearing their desks by simply transporting everything over to you. Shit just doesn’t end. You wonder how you came to be here at this desk, writing this inter-office email, using words like “actionable” and “synergy”. How did this come to pass? No one makes their mark on this world by using “actionable”. No one. What had Murakami done by the time he was your age? Or DaVinci? Or Batman? I bet Batman wasn’t responding to emails, that’s for sure; because he’s the goddamn Batman and he doesn’t need a motherfucking desk job, Jim. His job is kicking ass, period. For real. Of course, he was also rich, which gave him the financial independence required to become the scourge of Gotham’s underworld. It’s an unfair comparison really.
All this brain power being used for introspection would be so much better spent elsewhere, don’t you think? And I don’t mean the email you’re writing. Just wrap it up. That’s it. Now hit “send”. Very good. As I was saying, your mental faculties should be applied to something worthwhile something like the Friday Afternoon Movie. Today’s FAM is Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, based on the novel Roadside Picnic written by brothers Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, who also wrote the film’s screenplay. Like all Tarkovsky, Stalker is a slow burn. It’s two and a half hours for a reason, partly because Andrei has a whole lot of pretty and haunting things he wants to show you and partly because the characters have Something To Say. Tarkovsky is of the “love him or hate him” variety of director so your mileage may vary, but Stalker is near the top for my favorite films. Just watch the movie and try not to think about what Tarkovsky was doing when he was thirty.
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.
