Bear with the somewhat sluggish posting schedule, folks. We’re slogging through last-minute corrections to the final proofs of Issue 02 and losing our minds in the process. I do mean that literally. Earlier tonight, poor Nadya sneezed and a big chunk of her frontal lobe fell out. I called her just now to discuss a kerning issue and the conversation went a little something like this. Meanwhile, Zoetica’s delicate alien grey matter has liquefied entirely from overexposure to laptop radiation. As for me, well, I’m having flashbacks of that one time I accidentally took ‘shrooms laced with bathtub LSD and ran out into traffic on the I-580 yelling “FLESH TETRIS, FLESH TETRIS, EVERYTHING FEELS LIKE MATH, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP THE FLESH TETRIS, STOPPIT, HNNNGH” until someone threw a tarp over my head.
It certainly doesn’t help that this 8-Bit version of “Angel of Death” has been lodged in my noggin for several days now.
You know how, as a child, you have that one vivid dream that you remember for the rest of your life? Mine was about this snail house. This exact one. I must have been about five or six. I dreamt that I was lost alone in the woods, in a very eerie Hedgehog in the Fog kind of way. Wandering through the hazy forest, shivering as the twigs creaked underneath my feet, I came upon a little house that was shaped like a giant snail, with windows illuminated by old-fashioned kerosene lamps. There, a kindly lady with white hair and a hunched back waited for me. She was the innkeeper, and the snail house was her inn… or maybe it wasn’t an inn, maybe it was some sort of safe house for lost wanderers. I don’t remember. At any rate, she sat me down and served me buttered pierogi, tea and warm milk. She asked me to help her run the house, I gladly agreed. The longer I stayed, the more a part of me the house became; physically, and mentally. For example, I could make the house move from place to place with my mind. When I woke up in real life, I kept shutting my eyes and wishing I could go back. It was the most comfortable place I’d ever been.
I never thought I’d see that place so clearly again, so imagine my shock when I stumbled across this lovely dollhouse by Russian-born, Helsink-based artist Ilona. Ilona, who has no site, only a modest LJ, sculpted every detail of the tiny house, from the shell exterior to the tiny paper magazines on a shelf inside. She was apparently inspired by this image, which she found on a Russian LiveJournal community “for people who love snails.” (Oh, and here’s a totally inappropriate picture from this community to totally ruin the mood of this nostalgic post. Enjoy!). But I digress. This dollhouse is completely magical to me. I love the images of the snail-house by day, but I love it even more by night, because that’s when it most resembles the snail-house in my dream. But what really stopped me was the title. It’s called The Boarding House “At Snail’s.” It sounds better in Russian because the word “snail” is a very soothing, gentle word – ulitka.
San Franciscans, tonight you are in for a special treat. Mer is performing with the Ragwater Revue at The Stork Club! If you have never seen Mer perform, let me tell you: it’s an experience. I’ve seen her twice, so far. One time, she played violin with The Dresden Dolls, and the other time, it was at our launch party, rockin’ the theremin. And let me tell you people – people faint when she plays. She’s that good.
So imaginging Mer with the Ragwater Revue – “a lethal concoction of booze-fueled swamp lust” – makes me want to hop on a plane to the Bay Area right now. Ragwater Revue combines elements of swampy blues, rockabilly and 1960s garage rock with lyrics that invoke alligator babies, glass eyes and cemeteries. “Imagine an old seedy bar in the 1930s where women adorned in puffy mink shawls smoke using long Cruella DeVille-like cigarette extenders and dark-haired men in suits slowly tap their feet to some jazzy blues,” writes Artsweek California. “Ragwater Revue would be the band on the stage.” As an added bonus, tonight’s show also debuts Coilhouse’s own star commenter Gooby Herms on bass! This show is not to be missed.
21:00 at Stork Club: Death Rock Dive Bar!
2330 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, California 94612. Cost: TBA.
When I first heard about Sita Sings the Blues, my initial reaction was one of near-disbelief. “No, wait, you’re telling me that someone made a feature-length animated version of the Ramayana focused on much-put-upon Sita and if that wasn’t enough, it’s filled with musical numbers set to Annette Hanshaw’s inimitable jazz vocals? With sarcastic shadow puppets?! You’re kidding, right?”
No, Nina Paley‘s Sita Sings the Blues is very, blessedly, real. My next reaction was that something this eclectic and experimental in concept was going to either crash and burn or succeed brilliantly.
The result? Well here’s a glimpse:
After attending a sold-out showing at the Asheville Film Festival a two weeks ago, I was blown away. It is, without a doubt, like nothing I have seen on screen. There are very few movies anymore where one can gleefully proclaim, mid-way through “Wow, I’ve got no fucking clue what’s going to happen next!”
Sita‘s magnificence is a testament to the tireless hard work and innovative vision of Paley, a longtime alternative cartoonist, who made the whole film on her home computer over five years. The ideas for the movie stem from a particularly harsh break-up (that story’s also told in the movie). Her struggle still isn’t over either: her creation still faces numerous hurdles, both from Hindu fundamentalists and corporate music juggernauts. This thankfully hasn’t stopped it from tearing up the festival circuit across several continents, getting much acclaim at big name fests like Berlin and Tribeca.
So how did something like this come about? Paley was kind enough to talk about the movie’s genesis, its challenges and why audiences these days are doing more than just buying tickets.
COILHOUSE: Why make a feature movie out of the Ramayana, of all things?
NINA PALEY: Well, I was moved by the story and it seemed to speak so much to my life at the time, my problems at the time. It was cathartic to retell the story.
The tagline you use in the movie is “the Greatest Breakup Story Ever Told” Which is a nod to the Bible movie, the Greatest Story Ever Told.
Yes, we’re back in a public restroom! (Hi George Michael!) But instead of discussing your shit, this time we’ll be discussing your shit-facedness. Russian Bear vodka apparently placed this poster in some clubs and bars around Cape Town, South Africa. It’s a pretty damn cool idea, using fake Cyrillic lettering. Because when you’re a high-proof spirit presenting a “don’t drink and drive” ad message to drunks, doing so with a little fun and a wink strikes the right tone. But…yes, I have a problem with the execution. “Real Men…?” Really? You couldn’t come up with something better than that idiotic cliche? How bout simply “Comrade?” Or something like “Party Members Don’t Drink And Drive.” The Soviet propaganda-style art direction is begging for something else, right? (Image via adgoodness.)
A friend and I were deep in the tunnels of late-night Internet mining when he sent me a link to the image above. Accidental discovery! Ten minutes later we were scraping our jaws off the floor while perusing Patricia Piccinini’s website. “Young Family” is part of a series devoted to genetic engineering, tradition and our potential metamorphoses as result of rapid scientific and social change.
These creatures are designed by Patricia and created by teams of sculptors, painters and upholsterers. Beyond the mind-boggling technical aspects of her mixed media installations, Piccinini focuses on questioning science, humanity’s fading sense of acceptable reality and the discrepancies between physical and emotional beauty. From the essay about this pieces:
The sculpture puts on public display all the physical attributes denied in the days of plastic surgery, airbrushes and full-body waxes – fat, wrinkles, moles hairs and bumps. Their owner has her hands and feet curled up on themselves and lies in a semi-fetal position of defense and vulnerability, suggesting a kind of withdrawal from this display. At the same time, her humane demeanor and maternal generosity make these fleshly imperfections [for that is how we are socialized to see them] seem less important than acceptance and inclusiveness. Piccinni calls her “beautiful”, saying “she is not threatening, but a face you could love, and a face inlove with her family.
For all its grotesqueness, this sculptural tableau focuses on the loving, nurturing relationship of mother and babies that is fundamental to life This unifying quality – emphasized by the kidney-shaped enclosure of the group as a family unit – is at odds with the composite heterogeneity of the creature.
What I thought to be concept art for the Dark Crystal Pt. 2 turned out to be touching social commentary. I do still enjoy these sculptures on a purely visual level and come back to Patricia’s website to study every pore, fold and mystery orifice. A few more below the jump.
Loy Krathong is held on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar (which usually falls in November here in the west). This month in the Northern Thai kingdom, case ritual symbolism and Lanna Thai Buddhist tradition intertwine as communities gather together to celebrate a vast healing ritual.
In a ceremony possibly derived from the Hindu celebration of Diwaliin India, hundreds of thousands of candle-lit krathong (banana leaf rafts) and elaborate, glittering floats are set adrift in rivers, streams, lakes, and canals:
The film above, Rabbits’ Moon, was Kenneth Anger’s 1979 tribute to classic themes of love and folly, as influenced by Kabuki theater as well as commedia dell’arte. Japanese folklore’s Moon Rabbit is a symbol of self-sacrifice, not unlike Pierrot The Fool. Pierrot suffers at the whims of Columbine while Harlequin enjoys the show. This seven-minute film took twenty years to complete and its original score included music from The Capris, Mary Wells and Jamie Cullum among others. Anger, [Lucifer Rising, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome,author of Hollywood Babylon] one of the world’s greatest experimental filmmakers, is presenting five of his films tonight at the very intimate RedCat Theater.
A towering figure of American avant-garde cinema since the mid-1940s, Kenneth Anger has posited himself at the junction of pop and underground culture, occultism and rock music. Tonight’s screening presents an array of works in which Anger subjects different ideologies and subcultures to his incisive vision and the uncanny re(de)constructive power of his editing skills. Ich Will (2008, 35 min.) montages newsreels from the Nazi era to Bruckner’s music. Mouse Heaven (2005, 12 min.) “does for Mickey Mouse what Scorpio Rising did for neo-Nazi biker gangs,” according to the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Elliott’s Suicide (2007, 15 min.) is an elegy for the late Elliott Smith, while I’ll Be Watching You (2007, 4:52 min.) and Foreplay (2008, 7 min.) explore two different forms of male bonding: sex in an underground parking structure and a soccer team’s training session. The program concludes with the seminal Scorpio Rising (1963, 29 min., 35mm), whose hallucinatory and campy communing with pop culture fetishes (chrome-trimmed choppers, James Dean, zippers, Jesus) has been an enduring avant-garde crowd pleaser.
I have threetwo [all gone, sorry peeps!] complimentary tickets available to the first three humans to write me with their emails titled “Anger!”. The presentation begins at 8:30 pm – don’t delay!
Soy represents dense nutritional life. Bomb is, obviously, an explosive destructive force. So, “soy bomb” is what I think art should be: dense, transformational, explosive life! —Michael Portnoy
I sometimes wonder how the NYC folks I’ve lost touch with are doing these days. For instance, my former roomie and occasional partner in performance art/music/fashion shenanigans, Michael Portnoy. A multi-talented, mischievous fellow who rented me a room in his flat on the Lower East Side when I first arrived in town, Michael’s “diverse practice spans dance-theater, metafunctional sculpture, fascist socials, experimental stand-up, prog-operatic spectacle, an aerobic restaurant where food leaps out from the walls, and Icelandic cockroach porn.” Noble pursuits, one and all! However, Mister Portnoy remains best known for his balls-out impromptu guerilla dance’plosion during Bob Dylan’s performance of “Love Sick” at the 1998 Grammy Awards:
(I love that it took almost a full minute for anyone to realize Soy Bomb wasn’t part of the show and “escort” him offstage.)
A bit of background info: the Grammys production team had hired Michael and two dozen other extras to stand in the background and wriggle in a shambolic, vaguely beatnik fashion to “give Bob a good vibe.” $200 to do a bit of insincere finger-snapping on live television? Not bad work if you can get it. But Michael had more grandiose visions, and of course, the rest is history. Love it or hate it (and to be sure, I love it a little more every time I watch it) “the Soy Bomb incident” has become one of the most memorable moments in televised award ceremony history, right up there with Sasheen Littlefeather declining Marlon Brando’s Academy Award for him to a chorus of boos, Jarvis Cocker interrupting Michael Jackson‘s pretentious BRIT Awards spectacle, and Sally Fields mewling “you like meee!”
A very wise, oft-quoted fellow named Joel Hodgson once said “we never ask, will anyone get this? We just assume the right people will get it.” On that note, without further explication, here’s the infamous “Twelve Tone Commercial” raillery (recorded back in 1977 by some super-awesomely eggheaded musicians) more recently set to an inspired collection of moving pictures by some wacky genius who may or may not reside in Austria:
The audio on this was recorded 40 years ago by Robert Conrad, founder of WCLV classical radio. A prolific American conductor named Kenneth Jean produced it, and revered Swiss composer/conductor Matthias Bamert is said to have had a hand in it as well. Bless ’em all.
To anyone peeing their pants and rolling on the floor laughing right now: you are officially the nerdiest music nerd that ever nerded from Serial Composition class.
