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.

“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.

It’s almost Halloween which mean it’s time to hunker down and finish off putting all those razorblades in the candied apples you bought if you’re going to have them finished in time for the trick-or-treaters. While you’re doing that, you sick, sick bastard, enjoy a few hours of macabre tales on film.

First up we have Eyes Without a Face (Les yeux sans visage) from 1960, directed by Georges Franju and based on the novel by Jean Redon. Eyes Without a Face tells the story of one Doctor Génessier, a surgeon looking to restore the face of his daughter Christiane, disfigured in a automobile accident. To this end the doctor, with the help of his assistant Louise, abduct young women in order to provide a face for transplant. For a film made in 1960 Eyes Without a Face contains what must have been a shocking amount of gore. The scene in which Génessier slowly removes the face of Edna Gruber is still effective in grossing out the squeamish and the slow degeneration of the transplant as Christiane’s body rejects it follows right on its heels. If you only watch one of these films I urge you to watch this one. Wonderfully shot by Eugen Shuftan, alternating between the serene and the grotesque, it’s an under-appreciated classic.

Next is 1977’s Suspiria directed by the one and only Dario Argento. Suzy Bannion, a ballerina from New York, travels to Freiburg to attend a famous ballet school only to discover that it actually houses a coven of murderous witches. What follows is a surreal hallucination of horror movie. Argento’s world is downright insane and his signature use of anamorphic lenses is in full effect. Also present is his pointed use of incredibly vivid primary colors, particularly red which is so bright here that the blood is almost fluorescent. The effect was achieved using the imbibition process utilized by Technicolor, the same process used in movies like The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. In fact, as well as featuring Udo Kier, Suspiria is also known for being the last film processed using this method. Udo Kier alone should be reason enough to watch this one.

And there it is ladies and gentlemen, your Halloween flavored FAM. Enjoy the holiday and make sure you don’t eat those special, candied apples. They’re for the kids.

It was many years ago when I first discovered the awesomeness that is Vagina Power, an Atlanta-based public access show hosted by the inimitable Alexyss K. Tylor and her often shocked and bewildered mother. Few have done more to empower women than Tylor, a woman whose unique voice shines through in the heated battle betwixt the genitals.

In this particular episode, she uses the holiday of Halloween to focus on a woman’s duty to police her vagina, a valiant call to arms, meant to tame the lawless land below the waists of the Second Sex. In doing so she also explores the wedding ring’s role in binding both the Penis and the Nuts. It is not quite as stupendous as when she explained that “dick’ll make you slap somebody”, but it is classic Alexyss K. Tylor nonetheless.

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.

Owen Pallett, formerly performing as Final Fantasy, is on tour right now. Though the American leg is over, there are plenty of Canadian, European and Asian dates to look forward to. This is valuable information for lovers of string music, peculiar lyrics and minimal, yet mesmerizing performances.

Since 2002, Pallett has contributed violins and arrangements to over thirty albums by other artists, in addition to recording three albums of his own, two under his old, video-game-inspired moniker. Like the wonderful Zoe Keating, repeatedly featured here and in Coilhouse 05, he plays over loops he records live. He also sings, plays keyboards, quips and manages to entrance fans whether he’s playing in a dive bar or a massive theater. Below, a funny [and strangely moving] video from a performance last year at the Live at the Hillside festival in Guelph, where a drenched Owen Pallett plays against a wall of rain, and against the wishes of festival security.

There are two official music videos below the jump, where you can hear how Pallett sounds in less adverse conditions. Neither does his live act justice, though both are neat-o.

I admit I know nothing about Flying Lotus but the video for their song “Kill Your Co-Workers” caught my eye. Featuring the digital madness of Mike Winkelmann, viagra it depicts a joyful parade that goes horribly, horribly awry. Mr. Winkelmann has made the models open source and available for download for those with an artistic bent.

One of the fiercest, capsule strangest, cialis sale coolest grand dames of punk rock has left us. Ari Up, free-spirited vocalist for the UK punk band, The Slits (as well as countless subsequent music projects), has died after a long, unspecified illness. She was 48 years old.

Anyone who ever had the privilege of seeing Ari perform –or even just to be in the same room with her and that huge, husky laugh– knows what a tremendous force of nature she was. Her ongoing mission: “to fight for musical expression, women, and cultural freedom.” Love you, Baby Ari. Madussa. True Warrior. The mission continues.

A preface for the unfamiliar, potentially aghast reader: the English Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter was, according to all accounts, a gentle and kindhearted man. (Read more about him here, and here.) All the animals Potter used in his work were said to have died of natural causes. Apparently, he never harmed any creature presented in his displays. Rather, he arranged to take carcasses off the hands of a local farm and veterinarian. Additionally, as his reputation grew, the community he lived in began to donate expired critters.

Bride from “Kitten’s Wedding”

Today, many perceive his elaborate anthropomorphic dioramas –featuring various dead animals: kittens, puppies, rabbits, ducks, squirrels, frogs, etc, imitating domestic human life– as grotesque, but bear in mind that at the time they were made, and for many decades following, the creatures in Potter’s vast collection were well-admired as an elegant source of “Victorian whimsy”.

Long after Potter’s death, crowds still came to view his thousands of creatures at the Potter Museum in Bramber, Sussex, England. (Then, later, at Cornwall’s Jamaica Inn.) However, sensibilities change.  By the end of the 20th century, fewer and fewer devotees were making the pilgrimage to see Potter’s body of, well, bodies. The vast collection was finally dismantled and sold off in bits and pieces in 2003, to a wide array of buyers, for roughly £500,000.

“Rabbit and Hen”

“It caused outrage when John and Wendy Watts split up and sold the historic dioramas. […] Artist Damien Hirst, a huge fan of Walter Potter’s work, said he would have paid £1 million to keep the collection together.” Now, eight years later, many of the pieces have been reassembled in an exhibition at the Museum of Everything in Primrose Hill, London. Co-curators James Brett and Peter Blake did their best to retrieve as many of the dioramas back on loan as they could. Opening today, the gallery showing includes several of Potter’s most famous pieces: “The Death of Cock Robin,” The House that Jack Built”, and “Happy Families”.

“A Friend In Need”

Unsqueamish Coilhouse readers in the UK/Europe, don’t miss this rare opportunity to see Potter’s fascinating work in person! (It runs through December.) Please be sure to report back. Several more images after the jump.

“I’m a little teapot…” By Charles Krafft. As seen on LAShTAL.

Quiver and quail, Thelemites, for Τὸ Μεγα Θηρίον‘s whelping day is upon us. What better way to acknowledge the degenerate rice-cooker than with one of David Tibet‘s crowning musical/lyrical achievements, a magickal rap ditty called “Crowleymass Unveiled”?

File this one under the ultra specific hybrid category of “Can’t believe this actually exists/Can’t stop laughing.” Along with this. Also, this.

Full “Crowleymass” lyrics posted after the jump.