The image above could be the first poster for Joseph Kahn‘s film adaptation of William Gibson’s landmark cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer. Word of a Neuromancer movie has been buzzing around for nearly a decade, but seeing a visual representation does make it a all bit more real.

Khan is currently known for his directorial debut, Torque, and a music video for the Britney Spears song “Toxic”. Mildly put, his repertoire doesn’t exactly thrill most Neuromancer fans. This, combined with the general sentiment that Neuromancer simply can not be translated into film, has the director under a lot of pressure. Since so little is known about the film production, rumor mills have been churning out all sorts of gems. There is the prospect of Hayden Christensen playing anti-hero hacker Case, a post claims this protagonist’s name would be changed to “Cage”, there’s the fact that Gibson himself is saying close to nothing about the film. There is even concept art out there!

What we’re not seeing, however, is a full cast list, nor any real confirmation that the film is actually happening [official website? IMDB page updates?]. Regardless, I hope that Kahn will stick to his guns and make a great movie, some necessary departure from the original withstanding. I’ll suppress my instinctual cynicism until there’s any real information to be had. While we wait, I’m desperately curious to hear your ideal Neuromancer cast nominations! The IMDB forums offer some interesting choices, here.

Jacques Barzun, as illustrated by Jean-Claude Floch

“Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches, no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and wonderfully diversified human race.”

“Finding oneself was a misnomer; a self is not found but made.”

-Jacques Barzun

Last November, historian and cultural critic Jacques Barzun turned 100. In his time, he’s written 37 books on a wide range of topics (38 is in the works), led a prestigious university and received a warehouse full of accolades. He is one of the world’s last living links to the intellectual life of the Belle Époque and the Roaring ’20s (he began teaching when Calvin Coolidge was in office). The word eminent is usually attached to any description of him, no matter who’s writing. It seems to fit.

He thinks the current time is decadent. Not just any decadence, but the sort that ends eras. But it’s not in the signs the usual staid wielder of that word might see: sex, uppity women, kids on the lawn. No, Barzun’s decadence is the end of motion, it is when scholarship becomes “the pretentious garbled in the unintelligible” and “the feeling of being hemmed in by rules matched that of being hemmed in by people.” Above all Barzun’s decadence is a failure of nerve: an unwillingness to face the future and what it demands of us.

For these observations and others, he has been often dismissed as a relic, a snobbish champion of the dead white male tradition. Even among his admirers, he might well go down in history simply as the guy who said that thing about baseball.

But it’s worth taking a look around, at the constant stream of imitative art, at politicians with heads firmly planted in the same tired sand — and at philosophies that serve mainly as elaborate excuses for doing nothing.

So, when Barzun sees things finally running down, with the grand ideas that have driven our culture since the Renaissance crumbling, it’s time to consider something else: he may be a curmudgeon, he may be old-fashioned, he may even be out of touch. He may also be right.

He says that the thigh rash is the worst part.

Old medical illustrations come in many flavors. Beautiful, cialis hilarious, grotesque – there’s a taste of each at NIH’s Historical Anatomies on the Web. Some 18th-century Persian illustrations peel back the subject’s skins to reveal a bright red reverse, which, coupled with the gold bracelets and the multicolored organs, gives the appearance elaborate stage costumes. A medieval battlefield surgery manual (with a very dramatic cover!) shares some tips on limb amputation. An anatomical horse prances in a field under a sky filled with flowers.  A 17th-century Persian depiction of bloodletting and venous figures reminds me of Daniel Johnston. Anime-sized gory eyes (what is even going on here?) stare at you from the pages of the Kaitai shinsho, a book illustrated by the Dutch and published in Japan. And the axe-murderer-style uterus illustrations will send chills down your spine. So… who’s hungry?

Previously:

• Elegant Spine Type
• Victorian Freaks & Other Bodies of Knowledge
• Meguro Parasitological Museum

Return from exile, 1994. Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev.

Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes the living memory of a nation. – Solzhenitsyn

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize winner and Russia’s voice against Stalinist regime’s brutality, has died at 89. The caustic prose of Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich exposed his fellow countrymen to the truth about inhuman suffering in secret slave labor camps, stirred the nation and ultimately cost him his citizenship.

After 20 years spent in exile, Solzhenitsyn was living and working in Moscow again, remaining vocal about his strong political views well into old age. In his recent years he briefly had his own TV show and wrote several political works condemning communism, Russia’s rampant nationalism and war as a whole.

Solzhenitsyn’s death is a tremendous loss and his work deserves special attention here at some point. Until then I suggest you pick up all 3 volumes of this and tell us what you think.

• Video of Putin awarding Solzhenitsyn an award last year; a rather strange event as even the reporter points out.
• A short autobiography written for Le Prix Nobel books.

Post-Nerd Prom portrait of your pitiful narrator, afflicted with the dreaded Con Plague, or perhaps some form of eyeball-displacing orbital tumor.

Apologies for not updating in “real time” on Sunday, but I’ve been slimed. That is to say, I have succumbed to the dreaded Con Crud, and could not muster the strength to lift my fingers (blackened, trembling, tumescent with pus) to type this missive until now. Tonight (scabby, delirious, drowning in my own phlegm) I’d like to share a consolidation of ComicKAAAAAHHHHN postcards, and quite possibly my death rattle, with you.

To start things off, here’s a chick straddling a seahorse monster:

This cover image of The Fabulous Women of Boris Vellejo & Julie Bell is fabulous indeed. It would be even more fabulous with the addition of some strategically placed tiny bubbles, don’t you agree?

Again, medicine it is the legend.

Here’s pop culture superbrain and potential Provigil poster child Douglas Wolk on the way to moderate his gazillionth panel of the weekend. In addition to being a complete sweetheart, Douglas is one of the most influential journalists in the industry. His fantastic book Reading Comics has been nominated for an Eisner Award this year. Congrats, mister!

EDIT: Reading Comics won the 2008 Will Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Book! YAY, DOUGLAS!

Oh no she dint! Oh yes she did! Go, Katie, go!

Sensual, challenging, awkward and sublime in turns, Katie West‘s self portraits readily draw comparisons to folks like Cindy Sherman and Aaron Hawks, although I personally find her output more endearing. She is vulnerable and toothsome, and an unrepentant goofball. It’s been such a joy to watch her vision deepen and ripen over the years. Fellow brave, wee wonkettes of the world, you’ve found your muse. Buy her book.

“The Dancer’s Fall” by Katie West.

Rory Root in his element, SD Comic Con 2004. Photo from geekspeak.org.

Devastating news for the comics community: Rory Root is gone. The driving force behind Comic Relief died earlier today following complications from a hernia operation. Rory’s “comic bookstore” in Berkeley, CA is arguably the most important sequential arts hub in the country, housing a gasp-inducing variety of zines, art books, manga, indie magazines, self-published strips, trade paperbacks, and underground comix in addition to more mainstream fare.

Rory was a tireless promoter of all things weird and wonderful. His pure, unclouded love for the medium proved highly contagious. Ask anyone who ever spoke to him for more than five minutes and they’ll likely tell you Rory was the most kind and giving businessman they’ve ever met. The man’s knowledge was vast and he had an uncanny ability to read people. Once he’d sussed you out, he could almost always intuit what undiscovered title you’d most enjoy. He was known to give free books to newbies at his store. “Just bring it back if you don’t like it.” With that enthusiasm and generosity, he won untold legions of longterm customers.

The Comic Relief bookstore in Berkeley, CA. Photo by Allan Ferguson.

He championed underdogs, queers and iconoclasts in his store and on the web, went out of his way to support artists and writers he believed in, acted as a kind of Yenta for kindred spirits in the biz, and campaigned fiercely to get graphic novels into public libraries. In 1993, San Diego Con-goers were delighted to see Rory and his store receive the very first Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award. No one, no one deserved that honor more than he did. Quoting Carl Horn over on Warren’s post of Rory’s passing: “There’s no reason a comics store can’t be a successful part of the community and a progressive cultural force–I saw it work with Comic Relief.”

Encountering Rory in his element at Con or in his shop always put a smile on my face. Although I only knew him in that context, I’m having trouble keeping it together, so I can’t imagine what his loved one are feeling right now. My condolences to his friends and family.

I’m sure they’re a bit overwhelmed over there at the moment, but I can’t think of a better way to honor Rory’s passing than to browse Comic Relief online or in person at some point in the near future. There is so much obscure beauty in that store that spoke to Rory Root, and through him. Pick up something you’ve never heard of before that speaks to you.

EDIT (5/20/08): Comic Relief just updated their site: “If you would like to make a contribution to the cause that Rory kept very close to his heart, you can make a donation to The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) in his name.”

Papa Nabokov does not approve.

“Vladimir Nabokov‘s final work — an unfinished manuscript scholars call The Original of Laura — was meant to be destroyed 30 years ago. When Nabokov died in 1977, he left instructions for his heirs to burn the 138 handwritten index cards that made up the rough draft”, reports NPR

However, once the beloved pervert kicked that bucked, the matter was out of his hands. Vera, the late novelist’s wife, didn’t carry out his final wish and now, years after her death, their 73-year-old son Dmitri Nabokov intends to publish the manuscript. Having agonized over this decision for 30 years Dimitri is now convinced it’s his gift to the world and his father would ultimately approve.

I’m inclined to believe that if a man requests something be burned, he means it. Nonetheless, whether publishing The Original of Laura is morally sound isn’t up to me to decide and I, undoubtedly with legions of ravenous fans, look forward to reading it. Sorry, Vlad! The choices made regarding editing should be interesting; whether the manuscript will be published as is or transformed into a cohesive novel is yet to be announced.