Now this is über.

The taxidermist/sculptor behind this piece, sovaldi Lisa Black, has also created a wind-up baby crocodile with working gears. I want one as a pet! [By way of Warren Ellis and Porphyre]

Les Kiriki Acrobates Japonais (1907)

Spaniard Teruel Segundo de Chomón y Ruiz (1871-1929), a lesser known film pioneer with a particular fondness for hand-tinting his work, came to renown working for the Pathé brothers in the 1900s. While much of his work is directly informed by Méliès, Chomón’s distinctive aesthetic and deadpan humor set him apart and set a precedent for the surrealists Buñuel and Dalí. He also invented the film dolly.

The Golden Beetle (1907) is Chomón at his most delightfully innovative:

I learned of Chomón while watching the fantastic Landmarks of Early Film, Vol 1 collection, which also includes shorts by the Lumières, the aforementioned Méliès and some very early Kinetoscope movies. You can pick up a secondhand copy on Amazon for 20 bucks.

Say what you will about the bloodless electroclash/no wave resurgence. Lard knows I have. Watching its rise in popularity in post 9-11 New York City, I experienced what can only be described as an excruciating kind of soul death. It still makes me a bit nauseated to admit that in the wake of The Tower, my generation of NYC rock musicians had nothing better to offer up than this cocaine-spritzed, head-in-the-sand, garage schlocky, post post post punk photocopy of a bootleg of a cover rendition of a vibrant cultural scene populated by non-derivative bands 30 years ago. (The documentary Kill Your Idols offers an unflinching assessment of this phenomenon. Highly recommended.)

Still, there’s some truth to that whole “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” spiel, and it was nice to go to downtown clubs where beautiful, artfully tweezed and ever-mysterious DJs with asymmetrical hair spun vintage wax nightly: ESG, DNA, Contortions, Foetus, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Swans, beloved Klaus, etc. Cool non-Manhattanites –oh, ‘scuse me, I meant to say Honorary Citizens of the Center of the Known Universe– like the Birthday Party, Lene Lovich, Nina Hagen, and Malaria! were in heavy rotation as well. Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to the point of this post. (Heh. Sorry.)

Founded in early ’81, Malaria! was led by Bettina Koester and Gudrun Gut, and filled out with Manon P. Dursma, Christine Hahan and Susanne Kuhnke. I’m a longtime fan of theirs, but I hadn’t seen this gorgeous homemade Super 8 video for their song off the 12inch New York Passage: Your Turn to Run until recently:

directed by Dieter Hormel, Brigitte Bühler, Gudrun Gut

Is it just me, or is this footage reminiscent of something non-narrative filmmakers like Brakhage, Anger or Morrison might shoot? You know… if they were young, fierce and scrumptiously German in 1982. Dang! Both Gut and Koester are still actively making music, and having watched “Your Turn to Run”, I’m actually grumblingly grateful to the Bedford Avenue acoyltes of electro for their role in bringing the band renewed recognition.

• compiled Malaria! on emusic.com
• Gudrun Gut on MySpace
• BERLIN SUPER 80 : Music & Film Underground West Berlin 1978-1984

In Paige’s kitchen, outmoded cutlery and vintage postcards abound.

Oh, I love trash!
Anything dirty or dingy or dusty!
Anything ragged or rotten or rusty!
Yes, I love TRASH!
–Oscar the Grouch

Artist, dancer, muse o’ Brooklyn, Paige Stevenson has lived in her sprawling Williamsburg loft for almost twenty years. Every last nook and cranny is filled with artfully displayed found objects. Nicknamed the Hip Joint (after Paige yoinked that specific prosthetic human body part from an abandoned asylum hospital) once upon a time [EDIT 05/11: and now called The House of Collection] the place is legendary; sort of an unofficial Town Hall for the last stubborn gasp of New York’s bohemian art collective. Paige has hosted hundreds of performances, benefits, discoteques, tea parties, rehearsals, photo sessions and film shoots there.

Even after seven years of fighting litigation to try and kick her out of the rent-controlled space, Paige’s enthusiasm for collecting and sharing this vast array of discarded treasures remains boundless. “I guess my relationship to trash is one of aesthetic appreciation on a daily basis, because one could define the decoration of my house as Trash Decoration. It’s something that I live with every day, and enjoy, and actually love.” In this recent interview for The Garbage Collection, Paige discusses site specific pieces she’s rescued from the rubbish heap:

“The collection has accrued over the years from scavenging unloved objects. It seemed very sad to me that these things, because they were no longer used, had become garbage, landfill, trash… It’s my way of holding on to a little bit of the past.”

More photos and pertinent links under the cut.

Helicopter hair!

Don’t call them stylists – the term is “hair entertainers.” Today a hair show with a circuit of about 10 major American cities, Hair Wars began in 1991, and originates from nightclub events put on by one DJ Hump the Grinder. Today the event features some of the most multi-layered, hyper-detailed hairstyles I’ve ever seen. From haute-couture hair architecture to silly, surreal takes on everyday objects, images from this event convey artistry, humor and kitsch, all of which constantly flow into one another.

Photographer David Yellen has created a series of portraits of the hair show participants, which he published this past fall. Perhaps equally as fascinating as the hairstyles are the people wearing them. There are no fashion models here, just ordinary people having fun. They are young and old, male and female; many project the air of having been through a lot in their lifetime. There are little mysteries in each picture, such as in the image above, where the model has a visible scar on her neck. How did that happen? She could’ve hidden it with a scarf or a neckpiece (or with hair!) – but she didn’t, and the image is more powerful for it.

A good selection of images form this series can be seen on his site, and a further selection can be seen on Radar Online.

• David Yellen Photography – includes large section of Hair Wars
• Selection of Hair Wars images by Yellen on Radar
• Hair Wars on Amazon.com

Waaaaugh! Why didn’t anyone tell me about Skywhales? This is incredible. Have you seen it? What about you there, in the back, wearing the Dragonriders of Pern tee shirt? Ever heard of Skywhales? Yeah?

DAMN it. I’d never even heard of Skywhales until just now. What a huge, unsightly gap in my nerducation.

My old friend Adam Lamas and I were just wasting many precious hours of life watching cats have psychotic episodes on Teh YooToobz when suddenly he asked “wait, time out, have you seen Skywhales?” Nope, never heard of it. He made with the clickies and I promptly spilled bongwater wine all over myself.

My manta ray is all right.

Completed in 1983, Skywhales is an animated short about a race of green-skinned humanoid aliens who live on a floating island in the upper layers of a gaseous planet’s atmosphere. To survive, they hunt enormous manta ray creatures in pedal-powered airships. As this fansite author puts it, Skywhales “is a window onto an alien way of life–language, culture, taboos… as complete a picture as a short film has ever painted, and its final revelations are nothing short of haunting.”

And how! The “boo bee boo boo bee” stuff is a bit grating at first, but hang in there. It’s epic, as Nadya would say. Uber, even. Circle of life. See it! Skywhales! (Sorry, I just really like saying that. “Skywhales!” While making jazz hands.) But seriously. It’s gorgeous and poignant and disturbing. Like your mom. With a mohawk.

Skywhales!

Skywhales! Directed by Derek Hayes and Phil Austin and produced for Channel 4.

Photo by: Tatiana Guillaumet. Turbine jewelry: atomefabrik.

Everything that designer Freyagushi makes is a bit kinderwhore, prescription a bit medical, viagra and all pink. Many alt designers today try to present themselves as something more than what they actually are, embarrassing themselves in the process by doing things like erroneously adding the word “Couture” to the end of their business name. There’s no effort on Freyagushi’s part to look professional at all; she’s just like, “come into my zany world!” The result is honestly fun.

The designer is also the model in some of the pictures above (that’s her with the pink circuitry tattoo!). For her next trick she’s doing the Animal Hospital Fashion Show at the Torture Garden.

Model: Ulorin Vex. Photographer: Russell Coleman.

The freak shall inherit the earth.

Dear Mr Nomi,

We’ve never met, and your ashes have long since been scattered above Manhattan, so I guess it’s pretty weird for me to be writing you this letter. Then again, everyone always says you seemed to hail from another planet. Let’s pretend for a minute that you didn’t die alone in a hospital bed in 1983. It’s comforting to imagine that you simply returned to your home world and maybe, somehow, you can read this.

If you were still here, you’d be 64 years young today. No doubt your friends would be gathered around you at the piano to sing Kurt Weill and Chubby Checkers tunes. Perhaps you’d share some of your delicious homemade pastries with them and spend hours reminiscing about those hazy, crazy post-punk days in NYC.

Ruff and ready.

I wish I could fold time and space to sit in the balcony at Irving Plaza the night your brief, bright star ascended during a four night New Wave Vaudeville series. It was 1978. Up until then, you’d been supporting yourself as a pastry chef for well-to-do Hamptons types. They say that you emerged from the fog machine vapors like an alien from another planet, stiff and somber in a silver space suit and clear vinyl cape. My old friend Jim Sclavunos was there, manning the spotlight. He once told me that when you opened your Clara Bow mouth and sang, no one believed it was really you. The MC had to keep assuring the audience that you were not lip-syncing…

Caroll Christian Poell’s website simply shows a floating boot, its distressed leather and stitching dim in the murky water. An obsession with drowning, flesh and its deterioration comes through everything this Austrian-born designer creates. I actually hesitate to call CCP a designer, because so much of what he makes looks like it belongs in an art gallery. Accurately described as “elegant armor” on jcreport.com, some of his clothes are so stiff they stand up on their own, or so awkward and restricting that wearing them is often impractical.

The notoriously secretive Poell does not talk to media and is only sold in a handful of shops throughout the world. None of his lines are mass-produced, which makes them even more desirable to his growing [and wealthy] cult following.

Enzo & Donato (detail), 6″ x 6x 6″ each (12″ x 18″ x 10″-Mounted), 2004
Brass, bone, fur, cast/painted plastic, glass eyes

You may have already heard tell of Jessica Joslin‘s enchanted bestiary via the esteemed Wurzeltod, Brass Goggles or Boing Boing. If not, it’s a joy and an honor to introduce you to her work. In Jessica’s loving hands, delicate one-of-a-kind creatures are born of brass and bone, buttons and leather, glass eyes, mother of pearl, filigree, taxidermy, antique mechanical flotsam, scientific process, nostalgia and GENIUS!

From the Lisa Sette Gallery Newsletter:

Jessica Joslins’s odd menagerie begins with her penchant for collecting: “I find things anywhere that I find myself…in obscure junk shops, flea markets, attics, taxidermy supply houses, specialty hardware distributors… or walking through the woods.” Joslin seeks out and puts to use those bright odds and ends that might catch one’s eye in a box full of orphaned fixtures, or glinting up from the sidewalk. While each piece she employs in her eerie animal reliquary is delicately beautiful, it is also the detritus of human engineering and design: old brass buttons and gold braid, glass beads, clockwork cogs and velvet ribbon. Such items are reminiscent of the whimsical technology of a century past, one’s grandparents’ house, the dark interiors of old fashioned movie theatres – and as such they have an intriguing, wistful quality. In other words, Joslin collects the things that all of us secretly want to, the shiny pieces that we might comb through, handle and admire, but ultimately force ourselves to put down; what would we do with such things?

Flora, 4″ x 2″ x 3″, 2006
Brass, bone, sterling, painted wood, grommets, cast pewter, glass eyes

Jessica, who lives in Chicago with her commensurately brilliant husband, painter Jared Joslin, recently took time out of her busy schedule to answer several questions for the upcoming Coilhouse print magazine. You can read excerpts from this interview and meet a few more of her creatures under the cut. Also, anyone who happens to be in LA through the 23rd can take a closer look some of her work at the Los Angeles Art Show in Santa Monica.