Photo by Tim Palen. (Patti LaBelle, eat yer heart out!)

Selene Luna, our lovely and amazing Issue 02 cover girl, just announced her new one-woman show, Born to Be Alive, which will be running at the Davidson/Valentini Theatre from May 28-June 27. Written by John T. Stapleton and Selene Luna, and directed by Derick Lasalla, Born to Be Alive sounds like Luna’s most ambitious solo project yet. From the press release:

Selene Luna’s story is unlike anything being presented on stage today. The diminutive actress/writer/burlesque artist/stand-up comic/fashion model/activist has faced more obstacles than most as a woman born a little person who emigrated from Mexico to the U.S. with her family when she was just three years old. Confronting and overcoming multiple levels of discrimination, the Logo Award nominee has become one of the hottest members of Hollywood’s “eccentric artist community” and has crossed over into mainstream film, television, theatre and the print fashion world.

Aspects of Luna’s improbable odyssey have been explored in her previous plays, but Born to Be Alive is different. “I’ve evolved so much as a writer and performer,” Luna explains, “and I’ve also become much more willing to be open and vulnerable. This will be my most honest show ever, as well as my happiest and funniest.” It’s also the first time she’s had the support of a director (Derick LaSalla) and production team. The luxury of focusing exclusively on the creative elements of the show gives Luna the ability to go places she’s never touched before.

photo by Matthew Cope

Tickets available here, and more info here. Net proceeds from the production will benefit the Center’s broad array of services for the LGBT community.

Danielle Nicole Hills is a metalsmith based in Brooklyn, NYC. This week, photos of her wicked “Predator Rings” (for sale in her Etsy shop at $900 per five-fingered pair, or $200 per digit) have been making the rounds on the interwebs.

Predator Rings by Danielle Nicole. (All photos via her Etsy store or personal site.

Dig a little deeper, and it quickly becomes evident that there’s much more going on in this woman’s creative life than these gorgeous claws. Check out the artist statement posted on her personal website:

The impulse to adorn and improve the body in some way is an instinctual commonality throughout the world. The cultural motivations for personal adornment are innumerable, but the way in which people do this is fundamentally the same. I focus on creating a codependent relationship between adornment and the human form in which they both redefine the other. Each piece, when worn, removes the body from the context of modern society, emphasizing instinctual decorative practices.

Surgical Mask

By creating an aggressive dichotomy between subtle, elegant forms and vicious primal instinct I am able to transform the frame of reference the wearer is displayed in. The extravagant theatrical nature of each piece makes the concept of ritual and ritual adornment fundamental to the work.

Dang! Talk about heavy metal. Several more fierce pieces by Hills after the jump.

Kim Beaton and her digitigrade leg extensions. Photo by Dionwrbear.

The booming film industry here in Wellington, New Zealand (a.k.a “Wellywood“) has attracted phenomenal talent from all over the world. Creatives come from as far away as Los Angeles, London, Johannesburg, Vancouver and Tokyo to work on films like District 9, Avatar, and the LotR series. One such transplant is Kim Beaton, a multi-talented artist/inventor from Seattle who was recently hired by Weta Workshop to do conceptual design work on the upcoming Hobbit films.

Kim is a vibrant, intensely focused person who always seems happiest when she has multiple projects in development: large scale sculptures, community arts outreach programs, armor design and production, you name it! She’s also an accomplished inventor. In fact, many of you may already be familiar with one of her patents– last summer, two YouTube videos were posted of Kim striding through downtown Seattle in a pair of startling, stilt-like “reverse leg” extensions. The clips quickly went viral.

Upon arriving here, Kim was encouraged by Richard Taylor (5-time Academy Award winner and co-owner/co-director of the Weta Companies) to continue honing the digilegs’ design in the workshop. After several months of development and fine-tuning, the company is selling Kim’s professional design, now christened Weta Legs, for $945 U.S. dollars a pair. From the official site: “Weta has made many pairs of digitigrade leg extensions in the past for stunt men and creature performers in the movies and on the stage, but this is the first time we can offer [this] leg to anyone.” In fact, it’s the first time any company has put a line of digilegs into mainstream production.

A heads up to performers, costumers, burners, party monsters, cosplayers, designers and filmmakers– this is big. I’ve had the opportunity to test Kim’s prototype myself. They’re incredible. They’re comfortable. They’re FUN. I mean, really, really fun. Watch this instructional video (featuring Kim and a woman who has never been in stilts or extensions of any kind before in her life) to hear and see a bit about why her particular adaptation of the digitigrade concept is so unique and easy to acclimate to wearing.

As far as I know, there’s nothing else remotely like them available on the market. It’s very exciting news for Kim, for her company, and best of all, for all of the non film industry folks out there who can finally own a pair of these. Recently, Kim spoke with me at length about the history of digilegs, as well as her past community collaborations and several other upcoming personal projects. I hope you’ll enjoy getting to know this incredible woman and her work as much as I have.

Please describe the Weta Legs. What sets your invention apart from other kinds of stilts or leg extensions?
They have been called the Holy Grail of costuming. How do you build a device that will give a person the backward leg of a dog or horse? They are referred to by all sorts of names: digilegs, digitigrades, faun legs…

What does digitigrade mean?
A digitigrade is an animal that stands or walks on its digits, or toes. But this is not easy to say unless you like tongue twisters, so it was shortened to “digileg”. They’ve also been called “dog legs” or “reverse stilts”. Originally, we called them leg extensions, because they’re not really stilts, but we want to give them one name that is pretty easy to say. Hence, Weta Legs.

Self-taught graphic designer Courtney Riot is celebrating her whelping day. At 24, she’s the baby of the Coilhouse family.

Rascally Riot.

Courtney joined us on Issue 02 as the magazine’s Creative Director, and she’s been rocking our world ever since. Normally, someone in this position oversees a full staff of graphic designers. When she set about to work on Issue 02, Courtney handled everything from the overall design themes to the minutia of kerning and tracking on every single page. She didn’t just lay the magazine out; she gave it a personality. Suddenly, each article had a life of its own: hand-drawn lettering, intricate scrapbook-style collages, angular Soviet poster sensibilities, layouts constructed from cityscapes and mushroom clouds, type overgrown with weeds or shrouded in smoke… an article that looked like a pharmacy… an article that tasted like sugar skulls. Courtney brought them all to life.

This woman has become the invaluable fourth core member of Coilhouse’s editorial team. She’s a vital force in our production, and our evolution. As we head into the final production weeks of our next print issue, we want to shout something from the rooftops: THANK YOU, COURTNEY RIOT.

Photo by Lou O’Bedlam.

Our secret weapon. Our powerhouse. You never cease to amaze us. Without you, we were a knock-kneed, three-legged endtable that wasn’t quite sure of its aesthetic, or direction. With you, we’ve become an elegant, streamlined, galloping banquet table. We can’t wait to share what you’re working on right now for #05. Jaws are gonna drop.

Happy birthday, beautiful.

Hollis Hawthorne, Bay Area, 2008. (Photo by Alicia Sanguiliano, I think? If not, just let me know and I’ll update.)

Incredible, joyful news: Hollis Hawthorne has fully emerged from her coma.

Many of you will recall an urgent plea that went up on Coilhouse exactly a year ago, to the day, titled Performer/Cyclist Hollis Hawthorne Needs Our Help. Hollis, a lion-hearted young woman from the bay area performing arts/activist community, was traveling through India by motorcycle with her beau, Harrison, when tragedy struck– a driving accident left her bleeding out from severe head trauma in the middle of a busy road while Harrison frantically performed CPR to keep her alive. Twenty minutes passed before some good Samaritans stopped to pick them up and drove her to a hospital.

Hollis was in a vegetative state, thousands of miles from home and in dire need of highly specialized medical care– care unavailable to her in Chennai. Time was of the essence, but Hollis’ mother (who had rushed to her side) was told that they would have to pay $150,000 up front for medical transport from India to the States– an impossibly huge sum of money. As an uninsured American traveling abroad, Hollis was stranded.

“For the Love of Hollis” benefit in Portland, March 2009. Photo by Brooke Dillon.

Horrified word quickly spread online. If the internet were truly as cynical or callous a place as they say, people could have easily have dismissed Hollis for making a “reckless” choice to travel without insurance. But hey, guess what? Humanity prevailed. Turns out there really is something to this idea of a global tribe! Thousands of donations began pouring in from all over the world for this feisty, foundering girl we could all relate to. A dollar here, ten dollars there, it quickly added up. Across the country, massive benefits were held by concerned friends and strangers alike– auctions and raffles and kissing booths, dance performances, marching band processions, puppet shows. It was an incalculably huge and steady outpouring of support coming from every direction, “for Hollis, the doer, the mover, the shaker, the dancer, the muse, the generous, the dumpster queen, the friend.”

Meanwhile, her chart was reviewed and accepted by Stanford Medical–one of the best hospitals in the world– as a charity case. After three long, anxious weeks, $100k was raised. Hollis was able to return to California in a discount air ambulance. Her community rejoiced and folks flocked to visit Hollis at her bedside, to talk and cuddle, trying to coax her back from oblivion. But her fight, and her kin’s 24-7 vigil at her side, was only beginning. On March 24, 2009, Harrison wrote:

What does it mean to be in a coma? What does it mean to wake up? What defines consciousness? Where are the lines between ‘coma’, ‘persistent vegetative state’, ‘minimally conscious’ and ‘fully conscious’?  Hollis waxes and wanes between these and nobody can really say what’s going on behind the surface of her eyes.  I do know this; Hollis is beating all the odds.

Ever since the story broke, I’ve been checking in on Hollis’ progress via Friends of Hollis Hawthorne and Help Holli Heal. The latter is a site updated regularly by Hollis’ devoted mother, Diane, who has stayed with her daughter through this entire harrowing post-accident ordeal, sleeping on a cot beside her, holding her hand in the dark. Diane’s entries are rarely anything less than three-hanky tearjerkers! But her tone has remained steadfastly hopeful.

Hollis, healing up. (Photos via The Hindu, Eliza S., Angela Mae, Diane Allison.)

Eventually, Hollis was moved from Stanford to a rehab facility near Diane’s home in Nashville, TN. Loyal friends still visit as often as they can. Continuing benefits to help pay her overwhelming medical bills have been held as recently as last month. (If you want to donate, click here.) With the help of doctors, healers, medications and physical therapy, Hollis has shown slow but steady improvements these past few months. She has been fighting very, very hard.

There is so much love surrounding this girl. So many people –family and friends and strangers alike– are rooting for her. Why? Because any number of us could just as easily have wound up in a similarly nightmarish predicament, had our luck been different. Because a situation like hers reminds us just how easy it is to give, and to care. Because all of us weirdos, us wanderers, we’re in this together. Because she is luminous and we cannot afford to lose her:

Photo by Kyle Hailey.

And now, finally, she is waking up. Harrison, who visited her last week, just posted this update:

HOLLIS IS NOT AT ALL IN A COMA ANYMORE!!! Yes! You read that correctly! Scream, shout, jump up and down! Have a shot! Dance! Kiss somebody! It’s the real deal, seen it with mine own two eyes! She is awake and talking and present and brilliant and amazing!

Much as her name would suggest, Jane Quiet is a woman of few words.

…none at all, to be exact.

But in all truthfulness, and surely most would agree, words completely fail to do justice to scenes such as the one depicted above!

I stumbled across Jane Quiet, Occult Investigator quite by accident, whilst conducting a bit of research on the internet; to further elaborate, it was a serendipitous miss-spelling of Dennis Wheatley which led me directly into her path. Heralded as a “Denise Wheatley,” Jane Quiet is the co-creation/collaboration which crept from the minds of author K.A. Laity (Unikirja) and artist Elena Steier (Revenge of the Vampire Bed and Breakfast, Goth Scouts). The comic “presents the adventures of occult investigator Dr. Jane Quiet who uses her practical knowledge and esoteric studies to uncover the sources of paranormal disturbances.” If that is not compelling enough, this author whose writing has been praised by Clive Barker as “full of fluent style and poetic dialogue” has added the twist of an entirely silent comic.

From the author’s website :

“I think it was Elena’s idea to riff on John Silence, the psychic investigator created by Algernon Blackwood, master of the weird tale, about a hundred years ago. John Silence was rich doctor, skilled in weird science and keen to explore occult phenomena. It was an idea ripe for reinvigoration.”

If you are curious as to how one goes about writing a story with no dialogue, inquiries and subsequent replies can be found in a snippet below.

Coilhouse And how did you find the find the process of “writing” a silent comic?

K.A. Laity: Thank you — it was hard as HELL to write! You can see the script online: http://www.kalaity.com/jq1.pdf. I think it was just an off-hand remark, “hey, we could make it a silent comic, wouldn’t that be appropriate!” then when I started writing it, I cursed myself endlessly for having the idea. There was a lot of back and forth while Elena was drawing – partly because she always has lots of projects going on, but also because she would say “you can’t do all this in one panel” and either draw what she thought would work or ask me to work it out more carefully. It’s great discipline. I’m glad Elena is so patient and flexible. The anxiety of collaborating with friends is fearing that it will affect your relationship if things go badly. I really had to let go of control and find joy in the unexpected frisson that would occur. A lot of it is about leaving a looseness for the other person to do what they do best. The first drafts weren’t quite Moore-like, but they were far too specific. I learned to focus on what had to happen and the tone, and let Elena produce her magic.

Her first album was titled Metropolis, its follow-up – The Arch Android. She has killer rock n’ roll androgyne style and addictive musical-theater-trained pipes. Oh, she also does live painting and has her own label, too. Yet somehow, I hadn’t heard of Janelle Monae before this video for her single Many Moons popped up on my screen last week.

As you can see, Metropolis is a concept album. Its fictional protagonist Cindi Mayweather finds herself in the year 2719 and on the run from android law, because she’s in love with a human. Monae’s next three albums will follow Mayweather’s adventures, some of them in space.

Yep, I’m in full swoon. Monae’s influences might be more than a little transparent, but I just don’t care – the combination is fresh and it’s pop. Great pop, at that. There’s space and robots and art and she’s adorable, but above all that, she gives answers like this in interviews:

I am driven by the need for change. I have had many nightmares about our future and if we do keep living the way we do, killing the way we do, hating ourselves the way we do, I do believe we are headed to the great road of nowhere. I know that I was put on this earth to lead, not to be perfect, but to lead and display a positive example and that is what I will die trying to do.

And I actually believe these aren’t just producer-polished words – Janelle is already working on starting a non-profit organization to help disadvantaged girls develop their artistic side. When, in light of a Grammy nomination, she was asked if she enjoyed being photographed and interviewed, she said, “Only when I have something to say. I’m not a red carpet gal. I wear a uniform for god’s sake! I have a hair machine I stick my head into. I have other duties to worry about.”

You hear that, pop culture? More of it, please. Also, I need a hair machine.

Katie, wherever you are, you have the best grandma EVAR:

Via Everything Is Terrible.

“Call me eccentric I haven’t a doubt
I’ll labeled a whole lot worse and far out
When I roll down a springtime grassy green hill
You think I won’t but I betcha I will
Cause I’m over 21 considerably
and I’ve earned the right to be no one but me.”

Quickly! A sneak peek of some (very happy, glowy) people we’ll be featuring in Issue #05:

photo credit: Allan Amato/Coilhouse

(And everybody goes “AWWWWWWW.”)

So far, 2010 has indeed been a happy nude year for musician Amanda Palmer and her beau, author Neil Gaiman. On New Year’s Eve, Amanda joined the Boston Pops Orchestra for the second year running to perform both Dresden Dolls and solo material (as well as passionately ravish Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1), and at some point during the course of the night, Neil proposed. They publicly announced their engagement on January 15th. A day later, the lovebirds met up with our wondrous Mister Allan Amato in NYC, who took these photos for an upcoming Coilhouse Magazine feature on their creative life together. They like that top portrait so much, they’re using it as their official engagement press photo. Yay!

photo credit: Allan Amato/Coilhouse

At 4am the next morning, they boarded a plane to LA and went directly to the Golden Globes, where, as the Huffington Post put it, Amanda “immediately became the most interesting thing at the awards.” (Heeee hee hee hee hee. Some things never change.) Congratulations, you two.

________________________________________________________

So, hey… things are kind of chaotic around here for the next few days, owing to the Whitechapel residency and all of us juggling multiple balls. Please forgive me for consolidating the following announcement with the Gaimanda Impending Nuptials Declaration, but my co-editors and I would also like to mention that Coilhouse Issue #04 has OFFICIALLY SOLD OUT in the online store.

Wow. It’s been what, a month?! We’re floored. Thank you for your overwhelming support and patronage! For those of you (in the States, at least) who missed the cutoff, fret not. There are still copies available in select Barnes & Noble stores across the country. Full list of stores here. Just be sure to call ahead to reserve your copy. There’s also Meltdown Comics in LA, Wildilocks in Australia, and… well… me in New Zealand. (Kiwis, just pipe up in comments and I’ll arrange to get your info.)

Onward and upward, comrades! Please do drop by the Whitechapel thread if you get the chance. There’s some really lively discussion happening over there, and we’d love to see more of our beloved blog readers chime in.

FINALLY. Issue #04 of Coilhouse has taken corporeal form.

It’s haunted, you know. Or maybe it’s possessed. Or it could be we’ve got a grimoire on our hands.

All we know is, at some point during our editorial process—which normally involves very little cauldron-stirring or eye of newt, despite whatever “coven” rumors you may have heard—#04 took on a life of its own, and has since become a small, seething portal of the uncanny. It’s all a bit magic-with-a-k. We may giggle and wink (“O R’LYEH? IA, R’LYEH!”), but that doesn’t change the fact that these pages are spellbound. You will read of channeling and scrying, of shades and shamans, and phantoms both fabricated and inexplicable. You will meet reluctant oracles, occultists, and ghosts from the past.

Issue 04 is now available in our shop. For a limited time, you can purchase Issues 03 + 04 together for a discount price of $23! Click here to buy. Without further ado, the contents of Issue 04, below:

INFORM
This issue’s Inform/Inspire/Infect section headers, crafted by Zoetica, are all about communing with animal spirits. Below: the INFORM header, titled Stork Whispers. The section header below also contains almost all the design motifs that creative director Courtney Riot conjured throughout the issue: smoke, burn holes, aged paper and tattered lace.

The Tarnished Beauties of Blackwell, Oklahoma
In mid 2008, we were captivated by the imagery Meredith Yayanos shared in a post describing her visit to an obscure, careworn prairie museum in a small Oklahoma town. More recently, Coilhouse enlisted one of our wonderful readers, Joseph A. Holsten, to return to The White Pavilion, where he archived dozens of high res portraits of long-grown, long-dead children of pioneer America. They are reproduced here in an extended version of the original Blackwell photo essay.

Bernd Preiml’s Exquisite Apparitions
Bernd Preiml’s photographs describe a world filled with magic and mystery, often coupled with a disconcerting sense that sinister forces may be lurking. Through his dark and shining visions, he weaves haunting tales that encompass violence as well as transcendence, beauty as well as wrath. Interview by longtime Coilhouse co-conspirator, Jessica Joslin.

Children by the Millions Wait For Alex Chilton: A Fractured Memoir of the Counterculture
Joshua Ellis returns to Coilhouse with a whip-smart personal essay examining his experience with alternative culture. Beginning with an endearing description of adolescent initiation-by-music and ranting its way into present day’s monoculture, “Children by the Millions” is an incisive evaluation of the death of societal revolution in our “been there, done that” world. Josh draws parallels between counterculture and ancient mysticism, while eloquently articulating a premise that’s been gestating in all of our minds since we first started discussing the living death of alt culture here on Coilhouse.

Calaveras de Azucar
Courtesy of photographer Gayla Partridge comes this toothsome autumnal fashion editorial inspired by el Día de los Muertos, with a corresponding overview by Mer on the festival’s historical and cultural significance.

Hauntings: The Science of Ghosts
Earlier this year, our Manchester-based correspondent Mark Powell traveled to a “Science of Ghosts” conference in Edinburgh hosted by esteemed psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman and other leading experts. Mark shares what he learned about the history, pathology (and quackery) of hauntings and spiritualism. With fetching spirit photos, daguerrotypes, and other vintage ephemera provided by archivists Jack & Beverly Wilgus.

INSPIRE
Frog Prince

Kris Kuksi: Sculpting the Infinite
A substantial editorial featuring meticulous, hyper-detailed monuments to destruction sculpted by Missouri-born artist Kris Kuksi. In the coming days we’ll be posting an exclusive interview with Kris where he shares his thoughts on time, fixing humanity, and what might lie ahead. Introduction and interview by Ales Kot.

Still In The Cards: Alejandro Jodorowsky on King Shot, Comic Books and the Tarot De Marseilles
An informative, zany dialogue with one of modern cinema’s most iconoclastic masterminds, Alejandro Jodorowsky. The filmmaker who brought us The Holy Mountain, El Topo, and Santa Sangre speaks candidly about his past, present and future… as well as the roles that tarot, spirituality and comics have led in his more recent life. Article by Mark Powell.

Through the Mirror into the Forest: Kristamas Klousch
Our stunning cover girl’s self-portraiture explores a dark, kaleidoscopic array of facets; Kristamas is at once wild forest creature, fetish vixen, tousled witch, Lolita, courtesan, silent movie vamp and Voodoo priestess. Her ethereal photos race to capture each incarnation, just before the next comes out to play. Introduction by staffer Tanya Virodova.

Grant Morrison: Embracing the Apocalypse
Groundbreaking comic book writer Grant Morrison blows our minds with a massive ten-page interview that will gently squeeze your reality’s underbelly until you’re ready to take the future seriously. Grant sat down with Zoetica Ebb and Ales Kot for a three-hour talk covering everything from superheroes and interdimentional parasites to personal transformation and 2012. Featuring new portraits of Grant and his wife, Kristan, by Allan Amato.

Larkin Grimm: Advanced Shapeshifter
In a time when our culture seems to openly scorn –but secretly craves– magic, the musician Larkin Grimm is an unashamed and forthright power to be reckoned with. Interview by Coilhouse collaborator Angeliska Polacheck, as well as a review of the Musicka Mystica Maxima Festival curated by Grimm in NYC last fall.

INFECT
Snake Charmer

Brave Old World
A  collaboration between Chad Michael Ward and  Bad Charlotte, this editorial takes the gorgeous model out of time and space, into a gauzy netherworld. With wardrobe by Mother of London.

CB I Hate Perfume: The Story of an Olfactory Architect
Christopher Brosius has been called “The Willy Wonka of Perfume” and is renowned for his eccentricity and passionate standpoint when it comes to both the art and the industry of scent-building. An intimate and inspiring interview about his work and philosophy, conducted by Angeliska.

Print to Fit: Mavens of Meatcake
What self-respecting, spellbound witchy-pooh magazine would be complete without paper dolls by Dame Darcy?! Featuring beloved characters from the darling Dame’s legendary long-running comic book, Meatcake.