A new configuration from New Orleans’ own puppet darlings,
risen from the ashes of the Black Forest Fancies – The Mudlark Puppeteers
are back in Austin with two new shows. They will be performing The Six Swans
and The Nightingale at Center Stage Texas
2826 Real St. 78722

Thursday, July 29th and Friday, July 30 at 8:30 pm.
Admission $10 for adults, $5 for students, seniors and children.

We are hosting a very special party
on Saturday July 31st at 10pm
The Mudlarks present the
WORLD PREMIERE of
The Story of St Dymphna
Behold the making of the beloved martyr
and patron saint of madhouses, motherless children, and princesses in exile.
Told through rod and shadow puppetry – to a score of very black metal.
WARNING – MATURE CONTENT!
and The Six Swans – from the Brothers Grimm.
A princess braves an incredible trial to free her
brothers from a cruel witch’s curse.
Told in rod and shadow puppetry.

Also featuring the amazing Lex Land, chanteuse extraordinaire
and DJ Lina X spinning into the night for dancing under the trees!
1051 Springdale Rd – admission $6

(Pandora and Nina, post-bloodwrestling…)
The last two parties we threw for the Fancies were great successes,
with money raised for the Mudlark Theatre in New Orleans, and from
the Fish Fry for the Gulf Coast Fishermen. We threw an underpants
party, with live bloodwrestling, which was quite a hit, as you might imagine.

And before: as Dolly Parton

…and J. Lo!

Sick, as carny-barker presents the bloody spectacle, with Zibby, Frannie and Marrow wrasslin’ to the death!

Analy and Rachel tipped the pool over with their exertions!

Our donation bar was generously provided by the awesome folks at Tito’s Vodka,
with applejack cocktails that enabled and inspired much of the wrestling!

The bartenders did double time at the kissing booth.

Lovely Monika wielding sparklers in her fanciest underthings.

The lovingly cradled PBR was merely a prop to display her talent for showcasing.

Hans Christian Andersen’s story, The Nightingale was brought to life by the Mudlark Puppeteers,
as a fable told through shadow puppetry and marionettes. The Emperor’s palace and garden are
the most magnificent in the world, but of  the many wonders in his vast empire, the nightingale
is best of all. The emperor never leaves his throne, so heavy is he with his own importance,
so he has never heard the beloved voice of the little bird. The nightingale is summoned to the
palace, to please the Emperor, but can nature’s beauty thrive in a gilded cage at court?

Waiting for Gumbo was hysterical. Beckett’s Godot performed by crawdads, mice and live cockroaches!

Miss Amelia, radiant and lovely, and wearing only her unmentionables!

I don’t remember this chicky’s name, but I like her Aeon Flux hair-do.

Elves, I tell you! Amanda Stone is made of elves, and don’t let nobody tell you different.

See the full set of The Black Forest Fancies Underpants Party photos here!

Quite a while back, I happened across a very special film called Ménilmontant.
I wish I could remember now how I first heard of it – I think I recall someone whose
opinion I respect enormously (perhaps it was Joseph Cornell) refer to it as “the most
beautiful film ever made”. Or maybe I’m making that up. Either way, it is one of the
most beautiful films ever made, and the only film I’ve ever been inspired to attempt
to grab stills from. The process of nabbing screenshots seems to be a giant hassle,
or maybe I’m just doing it wrong! I managed to get these, though – only to forget
about them until I recently came across another collection of stills in one of my
favorite sources for inspiration: one of Livejournal’s very best Film Still Communities,
Nostalgia Party No. 2 – a veritable treasure trove, and the source of the majority of
transfixing images that cycle through when my computer goes idle. Beware, it is
addicting, and you are sure to end up with a fat folder of beautiful images from
films you adore, or have never even heard of. The lady who posted the stills,
Miss Sleep Sleeper, makes lovely collages, and has created some very nice
compilations of summer and morning music that I’ve been enjoying.
I love that she and I captured many of the same moments, and she
managed to get quite a few I didn’t have the patience to try for. Go
take a look at her collection – they’re really wonderful. The film
itself is such a jewel. It’s silent, but with no intertitles. It’s all nuance
and emotion, presented in the perfect faces of its beautiful stars,
Nadia Sibirskaïa and Guy Belmont. Miss Sibirskaïa is one of the
loveliest and most mysterious of silent film actresses. Her face
is a wonder. The director, Dimitri Kirsanoff, married her – and
perhaps it was he that encouraged her change of identity, as
she had been born Jeanne Brunet in Redon in 1901. I haven’t
been able to discover anything much about her, unfortunately.
The only thing I can figure is that the French bohemians were
Russophiles in the 1920′s, just as the Russian aristocracy were
Francophiles in the 1700′s. Funny how things reverse themselves!

I won’t go into any spoilers regarding the plot,
but there’s a great breakdown here, if you like.

Miss Gala Darling mistook this picture for our dear Mlle. Meredith Yayanos at first,
and I can definitely see it, though Sibirskaïa also makes me think of Miss Violetta
at times, and in the scenes where she’s playing her child-self, with her long curls down –
she reminds me so much of Pandora. Yes, many of my favorite people have a marked
resemblance to silent film stars! Giant eyes, bowed lips and extraordinary features.

Back in October, I was very lucky to catch a rare concert from Miss Hope Sandoval,
(formerly of Mazzy Star) with my darling Chadling (Mon Petit Fantome!) we held hands
and shivered with joy, listening to her gorgeous voice and her tiny frame half obscured by
mysterious projections. Imagine my delight, when at one point I glimpsed Nadia’s face up there!

What a fox. He’s so handsome here, but kind of odd looking later, without his hat.
At this angle, I am reminded so much of the cover of a David Bowie record I used to have –
the single for “John, I’m Only Dancing”. Can you see it too? I wish men still looked like that.

Mlle. Verhext went to Paris recently, and has been enchanting me
with her marvelous recountings of Parisian adventures (and amazing
parcels filled with fancy French treasure, mon dieu!) Go see, and see
if you get filled with an intense longing to go back to France – I know
I did! – Paris Walk No. 3: Left Bank and more…

Seul le Cinema – Films I Love #4: Ménilmontant

House of Mirth and Movies – Underrated Screen Beauties; Nadia Sibirskaïa

Oh, and – the film’s name comes from its setting – a neighbourhood of Paris,
situated in the city’s 20th arrondissement. It is affectionately known as “Ménilmuche”!
The name is said to derive from Mesnil Mautemps, meaning “bad weather house”.

The entire film is on YouTube, but I suggest renting it, if you can find it.

Charles Trenet, singing “Ménilmontant”

✸ One of my favorite films ever, I Am Dina, is available for your viewing pleasure
on Hulu right now, and though it’s not the ideal medium to watch something so
incredibly beautiful and powerful – it’s free! Also, I’m not sure that this film is at
all available widely (I had to order my DVD from Canada when it came out)
and that’s a damn shame, because it really is so wonderful. I came across some
information about it before it was ever released in the States, and managed to
catch it at a movie theatre when my Grandfather and I were in Copenhagen.
It just happened to be showing at a little art-house a few doors down from our
hotel (across from Tivoli Gardens!) So, it was everything I had hoped for and more:
a gorgeous, sweeping period drama set in Norway at the turn of the century
with wolf-wild, filthy snarling half-orphans, tragic deaths, cellos, and incredible
cinematography, set and costume design. The casting is superb, from Gérard Depardieu
to Maria Bonnevie (who I loved in the role of Dina). Not only that, but two of my favorite
actors, Christopher Eccleston and Hans Matheson have roles as a foxy Russian anarchist,
and sexy stableboy, respectively. Swoon. If you’ve ever wanted to ask me about my who
my dreamboat crushes are, well there you go. Also, Ralph Fiennes and Tilda Swinton.
So now you know, just in case you wanted to send me a singing telegram from any of
those people. Right. So – I went right out to a bookstore after we saw the film and bought
two of the trilogy that inspired the film, by Herbjørg Wassmo. Sadly, these are hard to find
in the States as well, and my copies were lent out and lost – so if anyone in Scandinavia
would be willing to send me English translations of Lykkens sønn or Karnas arv (which
I don’t even think was ever translated, actually. Damn it.) I’d be so grateful! Let me know!

✸ Rima Staines of The Hermitage recently made a fantastic post about
Old Women Who Paint On Their Walls. These magic self-taught crones
channel their passion, fears, hopes and joy into maniacally beautiful
paintings that cover their homes from floor to ceiling. The remind me
a bit of Nita and Zita, the burlesque acrobats from New Orleans. Their
house on Dauphine Street was painted everywhere too! Nita and Zita
are my patron saints, and number one fashion and lifestyle inspirations.

“What fascinates me about these women is the obsessiveness in their painting.
Perhaps because they’ve kept a lid on their creativity all their lives, and it boils
over dramatically in their later years, we see wild, imaginative, otherworldly art
produced lavishly beyond the boundaries. There is a difference about it.
But the interesting thing is that it is not “Art” but paintings, all over the walls
of these women’s houses. This transgresses any staid assumption of social
boundary – i.e. what is or is not acceptable in one’s dwelling place.
It is too much. It is mad. And it is marvellous!
They are peasant frescoes, and are utterly truly-wrought I think.”
– Rima Staines, on Old Women Who Paint On Their Walls
and
“Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses –
where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere –
are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals.
After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully
and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works,
cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade.”
~ Jean Dubuffet. Place à l’incivisme (Make way for Incivism).
Art and Text no.27

✸ Dagnabit, but wouldn’t you know I went and missed the Annual Coney Island
Mermaid Parade again this year? Well, Tod Seelie Suckapants was there,
and he took lots of great pictures, which you can peer at in the following sets:
GHOST-FACED AND FRIENDLY
DISAPPEAR WHEN YOU DRAW NEAR
BOW DOWN AND DIE

Also, I highly suggest you develop an addiction for his blog, because not only
does he regularly post amazing photos of my friends making art, making music,
making out, or making giant messes but he always does fun giveaways, and he
usually posts great music for you to check out. He’s introduced me to a lot of stuff
I might never had heard otherwise, including my top heavy-duty rotation summer
anthem of the moment, which is Lissie’s cover of Kid Cudi’s song Pursuit of Happiness.
It’s my get to it music right now. I’m normally not turned on by folky girls covering rap
songs ironically (barf), but this is just really good. Also, on that note – if we’re gonna
get cute, let’s not fuck around right? Who knew the Carebears were Ice Cube fans?

(Photograph by Madi Ju)

✸ I just discovered The Ladies’ Guide to the Apocalypse
tonight, purely by chance (if you believe in that!) and am blown away.
I need to go eat nachos with Summer Burkes real soon, and I think we
all need to be reading about her experiences doing cleanup in the Gulf.
Read her writing on the I Ching, and prepare to knocked on your ass.
I was just explaining what the I Ching was to someone earlier tonight,
and this makes me want to get some yarrow stalks. My dad taught me
how do it with quarters when I was 11, and though I feel far more
connected to the tarot, the hexagrams are so elegant and powerful.

✸ Welcome to East Austin! from The Hipstercrite
This is my neighborhood: sweet little alleys with junkyard dogs and magic
and also ridiculous modern condos that stick out like sore thumbs. Strange mix,
for sure – but here we are. A lot of them are just standing empty now. It’s be nice
if some families came and brought all their car parts and kids and cats and just
filled them up with life and barbecue and loud tejano on the radio. Fingers crossed!

✸ On the subject of hipsters, Alan Moore expounds on
his definition in an excellent interview in The Quietus by John Doran.

JD: “You’re proud of your status as a hipster. Do you regret
the way it’s become a disparaging, pejorative term now?

AM: Has it? Yeah, that’s probably true. It used to be a fashion statement,
but it was information as a fashion statement which is probably going to do
you more good than the clothing you wear. I got an incredible education starting
from the point at which I was thrown out of school. Now, I could probably hold my
own intellectually with most people who have had university or college educations.
And indeed some of them will have done courses on my books. So, despite the fact
my ‘education’ ended at 16, I had hipsterism, which was wanting to be hip, and that
led me to read this incredibly diverse array of books on science, mysticism, science
fiction, literature, art… I would find out about these movements that I had heard about,
and it’s given me a pretty comprehensive education. Now I am an autodidact,
which is a great word… I learned it myself.”
and this:
“Everybody is becoming [a superhero]. In the past I’ve tried to say,
‘Look, we are all crappy superheroes,’ because personal computers
and mobile phone devices are things that only Bat Man and Mr Fantastic
would have owned back in the sixties. We’ve all got this immense power
and we’re still sat at home watching pornography and buying scratch cards.
We’re rubbish, even though we are as gods. I think the idea that we can all be
superheroes if we want might still be contagious, like in V For Vendetta.
I’ve heard of urban superheroes springing up across the world.
I think there’s one in London called Angle-grinder Man…”

✸ Recently a caravan of friends went to go see Lois,
the Amorphophallus titanum blooming now at the
Houston Museum of Natural Science, but alas,
she was being shy that day! There have been quite a few blooms
here and there, and if you get the chance to experience it, you’re a lucky one
indeed. I hope at some point in my life, I will get to smell the corpse-tastic aroma!

FUNKWATCH: Corpse flower “On The Bloom”

✸ Care and Feeding of a Mermaid – superb vintage footage from 1961 (found via Miss Swissmiss)

✸ Inspired? You can make a mermaid tail of you very own! Finally!

✸ Exciting news! The latest issue of Coilhouse is out now:
Coilhouse 05: Let All The Children Boogie is the juiciest, most glam-tastic issue yet,
and I am proud to have a piece on The Last Days of Gadjo Disko
included in those glossy pages! Grab one quick, because the sell
out fast – you can buy online, or at most decent booksellers.

For your daily dose of wonder, I highly recommend developing an
addiction to the blog as well – there’s just so much goodness there!
For the last few months, my life had become almost unmanageably
busy – to the point where I no longer had any time to read all my
favorite blogs. Now that things are a little calmer, I’ve been making
time to go back through some of the great articles I missed, and
was especially taken with these gems. Deliciousness, ahoy:

✸ The Anthropomorphic Glamour of Antoine Helbert

✸ A Decadent Parade of Outrageous Fancies: Alastair

✸ Rachel Brice: Serpentine

✸ Alt/1977: WE ARE NOT TIME TRAVELERS by Alex Varanese
I love this set of re-imagined mp3 players and cell-phones designed
and advertised as it they had been invented in 1977. Reminds me
of the tantalizing technology I used to gaze longingly at in my uncle’s
OMNI magazines! I miss OMNI, man! I’d love to look at some old issues.
Happily, the folks at BoingBoing read my mind! There’s a great post
up with links to some of my favorite covers and more. Too good.
Memories of Omni magazine

✸ I ♡ LadyFag!
StyleLikeU has a great tour of her closet and boudoir.
I think she’s divine, and I’d like to comb her armpit hair
with a painted bone comb and then raid her wardrobe.

✸ Latest booklust and fascination: Hugh Raffles’s “Insectopedia”
He’s an anthropologist who’s exploring our relationships with
the insect world. I have a feeling that reading about his work
might really help me with the revulsion and panic I feel at times
when confronted with particularly nasty bugs. Namely the giant
“palmetto bug” cockroaches that we have down South. They fly.
I am fascinated and delighted by all sorts of other bugs, but there
are some that just make me act like a shrieking child! It’s so silly.
I have a good friend who is an entomologist, and I could pick his
brain for hours about the complex worlds of these creatures.
I love this excerpt from the Times article:
“Insects are all around us. They are the most numerous animals on earth,
yet we pay them scant attention. Few of us attend to their innate beauty.
More often than not, they are seen as pests sent to plague us
(with the notable exception of the now threatened honey bee).
‘We simply cannot find ourselves in these creatures,’ Raffles writes.
‘The more we look, the less we know. They are not like us.
They do not respond to acts of love or mercy or remorse.
It is worse than indifference. It is a deep, dead space
without reciprocity, recognition or redemption.’
[....] Raffles’s entry on “queer” insect sex is more life-affirming,
and comic, sparked off by an image of a butterfly probing the
anus of a rove beetle, ‘just two little animals enjoying a little action . . .
and feeling pretty good about it,’ as Raffles writes, exhorting,
‘We need more queerness!’”
There’s also a great interview with Hugh Raffles here

✸ I recently fell in love with the Texas Invasive Species
website. It’s so well-designed and informative! Yes, I am
aware of my intense dorkness. Honestly, though – it’s so rad.
I mean: Emerald Ash Borers, Raspberry Crazy Ants, Tropical
Soda Apples (which are listed as a Federal Noxious Weed!)
I could spend hours poring over plants and bugs that don’t belong.

✸ Scouting New York is the wonderful photo-blog of a location scout
who has a knack for finding the strangest and most amazing places.
Hidden In An Abandoned Orphanage
The Wizard Of Park Ave
Decapitation at the Ziegfeld

✸ I’ve been contemplating a re-design of my studio,
and have been much inspired by Rebecca Kasner’s
tumblr of inspired rooms. So much to drool over there!

✸ It’s been storming like crazy here this week, and we’ve got lots
of interesting neon-yellow mushrooms cropping up everywhere,
but I wish we had glow-in-the-dark mushrooms like the ones that
are appearing in Japan! I bet the kodamas sit on those.

✸ A Journey Round My Skull never ceases to captivate me with obscure prints
and illustrations. Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy is an incredible series
of prints of Chinese opera make-up. They are so fantastic, do go see them all!

Fellow Austinites, these next four days are your last chance to see this incredible show!
My BFFs, the Black Forest Fancies have been staying in our garden, camped out in tents
and the trailer for two weeks, and it is testament to their sweet natures and good hearts
that we have enjoyed every minute of their stay! Not only are they adorable darlings,
but they have created a wondrous spectacle for your delectation – get yourself to the
theatre and be amazed! There’s a great review in this week’s Chronicle also, hooray!
We held a benefit for the fancies, and for the Gulf Coast Fishermen last week in our garden,
and it was so much fun, we are doing another on Friday (tomorrow!), please come if you are able!
It’s going to be a Black Forest Fancies Sweetheart Soiree + Underpants Party!

New Orleans based puppet troupe, The Black Forest Fancies are bringing their award-winning show,
“The Pomology of Sweetness and Light” to Austin’s The BLUE Theatre this June. “The Pomology of Sweetness and Light,”
follows the tale of Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman, an American folk hero whose wholesome identity is complicated by the
esoteric fact of his thwarted engagement to a ten year old girl. Legend has it Chapman ended the engagement when he
saw the girl flirt with a boy her own age. It was Chapman’s belief that every creature and action on Earth is an echo of the
realm of the ‘Spirit.’ The story is told from the child bride’s perspective. Her understanding of the world and Chapman’s
philosophy are expressed through puppet craft and acrobatics. This is a story of exceptional beings. Inspired by the
journey of the apple on the frontier, “Pomology” is an exercise in selective adaptation. Onto the backdrop of the American
Eden, The Fancies graft the figures of Dionysus and Snow White, of St. Lydwina and the Big Bad Wolf. These scenes are
interwoven with an ongoing view of the apple’s journey from precious obscurity to domestic staple on the frontier.
“Pomology” puts these fables into conversation to tell a story of misfits
seeking their place in the new world and to revive a story of forgotten love.

(This photo, and the ones below are all from Charlie Kinyon – you can see his full set from the show on Flickr.

“The Pomology of Sweetness and Light”
At Austin TX’s BLUE Theatre
916 Springdale Rd 78702
Thursday, (Tonight!) June 17
Friday, June 18
and Saturday, June 19 at 8pm
Matinee show on Sunday, June 20 at 3 pm

These last four shows are likely to sell out, so buy your advance tickets at SMART-TIX
Tickets are also available at the door.
Tickets are a suggested $15 for adults
$10 for students, children and seniors

No one will be refused for lack of funds!

Parental Advisory – Contains Adult Themes

More info here:
www.theblackforestfancies.com
www.themudlarkconfectionary.com

RSVP at the Facebook Page!

Woman with Cross and Skull
19th c. – Qajar period, Iran
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper

Mistick Krewe of Comus float design, by Jennie Wilde — 1910
(see link below for the full set!)

(Any idea about who painted this? Tin Eye was stumped.
I traced it back toblessedwildapplegirl but the buck stopped there.)

✸ Bibiodyssey’s post on vintage Mardi Gras Designs
Mistick Krewe of Comus 1910 float designs
of float design drawings by Jennie Wilde
browse them all at the Louisiana Research Collection
I remember at French Quarter Postal Emporium they used to sell little postcard books of these.
I was always too broke to buy them, so would look at them when standing in line waiting to mail
my parcels, much to the chagrin of the fussy queens who worked there.

✸ I think I’ve mentioned my love for Shirley & Spinoza Radio before,
but it’s been awhile. I had forgotten how much I loved them. How could I?
They play the best, oddest and most obscure scraps of brilliance ever.

✸ Academy Award-nominated actress and Austin artist Susan Tyrrell loves sex, fags and gangsta rap.
Hooray for Susu Tyrrell, and hooray for my friend Chris Apollo Lynn, who interviewed her.

This article on the temptation of memory engineering is extremely absorbing:
✸ Removable Truths – A memory expert’s indestructible past.
By William Saletan
Reading it has made me fixate on our fallible and flexible memories. I recently
had an odd experience, where I realized that I had vividly remembered something
(the color, make and model of a friend’s car) that turned out to be wildly inaccurate.
It’s disturbing to think about, really. How could I remember it to be a burgundy Chevy
hoopty when it was really a white Mercedes diesel? I guess it was dark, and I was very
distracted – but really? That’s kind of a huge discrepancy. I was shocked to discover it.
Thanks to William Gibson for recommending this article, among many other things-
and speaking of, for the following recommendations as well:

✸ William Gibson’s favorite science fiction novels
I haven’t read a single one of these, though Wiley Wiggins did try to foist
Dhalgren on me years ago. Gibson says, “It won’t work unless you can allow
it to become your head for a few weeks; it helps if you’re rather young.” I think
I was too jaded by that point to really get into it. I’d discovered early on what my
bag was as far as science fiction went, from devouring my dad’s 70′s pulp paperbacks.
I tend not to dig anything where the characters are named Zorn or live on planet Xerzon.
The incredible images on the covers definitely made a huge impression on me, though.
I think I’ll need to see if my pops has any of the books on that list, and get my summer
space-sorceror escapist thing going. How about you? Got any favorite science fiction
I need to read? Lay it on me. We’re getting a new hammock tomorrow, so I need book-fuel!

✸ I just went on a bookspree and snatched up seven new books
but I absolutely must get this one next – it looks amazing:
CYCLONOPEDIA – Complicity with Anonymous Materials
By Reza Negarestani

“An American woman arrives in Istanbul to meet a pseudonymous
online acquaintance who never arrives. Discovering a strange manuscript in her hotel room,
she follows up its cryptic clues only to discover more plot-holes, and begins to wonder whether
her friend was a fictional quantity all along. Meanwhile, as the War on Terror escalates, the US
is dragged into an asymmetrical engagement with occultures whose principles are ancient, obscure,
and saturated in oil. It is as if war itself is feeding upon the warmachines, leveling cities into the desert,
seducing the aggressors into the dark heart of oil …

At once a horror fiction, a work of speculative theology, an atlas of demonology, a political samizdat
and a philosophic grimoire, Cyclonopedia is work of theory-fiction on the Middle East, where horror
is restlessly heaped upon horror. Reza Negarestani bridges the appalling vistas of contemporary world
politics and the War on Terror with the archeologies of the Middle East and the natural history of the Earth
itself. Cyclonopedia is a middle-eastern Odyssey, populated by archeologists, jihadis, oil smugglers,
Delta Force officers, heresiarchs, corpses of ancient gods and other puppets. The journey to the Underworld
begins with petroleum basins and the rotting Sun, continuing along the tentacled pipelines of oil, and at last
unfolding in the desert, where monotheism meets the Earth’s tarry dreams of insurrection against the Sun.”

✸ Burkas and Birkins -
I Watched 146 Minutes of Sex and the City 2 and All I Got Was This Religious Fundamentalism by Lindy West
This is so goddamn hilarious – and I’m so grateful to Lindy for seeing this awful bit o’ tripe
so I don’t have to! I still have never seen even one episode of that show, and an entire film
based on it sounds completely intolerable. I do love pretty frippery and all, but whoa. Scary!

✸ Pamela Colman Smith’s Russian Ballet
Pixie Smith is my number one magicienne inspiration.
She’s at the head of the invite list for my fantasy seance
dinner party, along with Joseph Cornell, Edward Gorey,
Louise Brooks, Vali Myers, and Austin Osman Spare.
Who would you invite to yours?

✸ Why are the East of Cities usually Poorer?
(via the always kick-ass from Brainpickings)
Interesting! I’d always wondered about this.

✸ Honeybee death mystery deepens
Colony collapse disorder linked to mix of fungal and viral infections.
A good article with actual information rather than hysteria. Don’t get me
wrong – I am worried about the bees every day, but having any clues as
to what is actually ailing them is the only way we can setting about changing
that. I can’t wait for the day when I can start to set up my hives. Honey magic!

✸ Post Pridematic Stress Syndrome – Shaking out Austin’s weekend of Pride
Here’s the run-down of articles, info and tantalizing tidbits from Pride,
including the entire text of Silky Shoemaker’s stunning speech at Queerbomb!

My dear friend Ooops is an amazing aerial artist who recently choreographed
and performed this piece as an homage to our friend Noah Vasilchek.
With Niki Frisky as her deer-twin, and the inimitable Chris Lane as emcee, and a bunch of
rowdies at One Eyed Jacks hootin’ and hollerin’. This is one of my favorite aerial performances, ever.

That’s what’s floatin’ around the rusty brainpan of late!
If you’ve got any suggestions for books/music/art/culture/information
that I need to know about, drop me a line on my tin can telephone.
I’ll be hanging out with the reading in my cave by the river with the
skulls of obscure saints to keep me company. Passenger pigeons
or smoke signals are accepted also, and if you travel in dreams,
come say hello. I get around most nights, more than I would’ve
guessed – but judging from how often I seem to pop up in the
dreams of friends and future friends, it seems I’m a nightly roamer.

(l’araignée, la maîtresse et la mandarine)
Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, The Mistress and The Tangerine

“My emotions are inappropriate for my size. My emotions are my demons.” – Louise Bourgeois

“I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands.” – Louise Bourgeois

✶ I’m very excited to hear that The Invention of Hugo Cabret
will be made into a film soon (directed by Scorsese, in 3D no less!)
It’s really a little redundant, as the book is such a work of wonder.
If you’ve not come across it yet, I entreat you to do so — promptly!

✶ Also, I’m waiting with baited breath for this:
THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET by David Mitchell
Mitchell is probably my favorite living author. For real.

✶ B. Traven: A Mystery Solved
I’ve been totally absorbed in this fascinating BBC Documentary
about the elusive author, thanks to Rusty Lazer who turned me
on to his books in a late-night kitchen-table mind-meld recently.
I realized after hearing a description of this man, that the author
in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 had to be based on none other!
I just bought The Savage Detectives today.
My summer reading list is gettin’ real tasty — blankets and margaritas and books, ahoy!

✶ Does anyone here remember this movie playing on television all the time?:
“Just One Of The Guys, the 1985 crossdressing teen comedy that
seamlessly integrated boob shots and gender discrimination critiques”
This movie made a huge impression on me when I was wee! I loved it, a lot.

✶ WILD WOMAN: TALLULAH BANKHEAD
I love Tallulah — hooray for Violetville!

✶ If you’ve ever asked a doctor if you could keep a piece of your body
they’ve recently extracted, or if you’re obsessed with the ballet, (or
my case, both apply) then you absolutely must read this article:
A Ballerina, Inside Out – by Toni Bentley
“A ballet dancer goes onstage on a given night, in a specific theater,
in a specific ballet and executes, in a specific fraction of musical time
a movement that is already past just as it appears. And it takes far more
than 10,000 hours of practice and repetition to make this movement exquisite,
worthy. A dancer’s entire career consists of these moments of non-existence;
they are not even fleeting, they are, somehow, never there at all,
a shadow in someone else’s mind at best.”

So brilliant. Many thanks to Odette O. for sending me the link!
She’s also the one that turned me on to this – (which I must see!):

✶ The Desert of Forbidden Art
“How does art survive in a time of oppression? During the Soviet rule
artists who stay true to their vision are executed, sent to mental hospitals or Gulags.
Their plight inspires young Igor Savitsky. He pretends to buy state-approved art
but instead daringly rescues 40,000 forbidden fellow artist’s works and creates
a museum in the desert of Uzbekistan, far from the watchful eyes of the KGB.
Though a penniless artist himself, he cajoles the cash to pay for the art from
the same authorities who are banning it. Savitsky amasses an eclectic mix
of Russian Avant-Garde art. But his greatest discovery is an unknown school
of artists who settle in Uzbekistan after the Russian revolution of 1917,
encountering a unique Islamic culture, as exotic to them as Tahiti was for Gauguin.
They develop a startlingly original style, fusing European
modernism with centuries-old Eastern traditions.”
See also: ART; In a Far Desert, a Startling Trove of Art

✶ 36 chilling photos of last Wednesday’s earthquake in Yushu, China (via brainpickings)
So many earthquakes. Volcanos. The end times are feelin’ kinda nigh, eh?

✶ This is one of my very favorite Siouxsie and the Banshees songs:
- Il Est Né le Divin Enfant (It’s a very grainy rip of a televised performance
of a French Christmas carol that was the b-side to 1982′s “Melt!”)
(Thank you, dear Monsieur Scythrop!)

✶ I love, love, love, love this:
Marina Abramović Made Me Cry
Thanks for the link, Tavi and thank you for your work Marina!

✶ New favorite blog: Ephemera Assemblyman

✶ Loving this: Miu Miu in Japan from Mlle. Clever Nettle!

✶ Other new favorite blog: Crappy Taxidermy
It’s my favorite kind! The rattier and weirder, the better.

✶ Okay, and one more thing:
LOST Tarot Cards by Alex Griendling
(These are beautifully designed!
Hi, I collect tarot decks and I’m a dork. Gimme.)

What are you reading/singing/loving right now? Do tell!

Isn’t this the most amazing painting? I’m cursing myself for
not buying it when I had the chance. Luckily, I got to take a
picture before it was swept away. Look at the giant grasshopper!
I just want to hang out with big green bugs and talking irises and be five.
Can that be arranged? Thanks. Damn, why isn’t this painting mine? Foolish!

Here’s another wonderfully naive iris painting. I love the bare trees in the
background and the crackling paint. It’s kind of sweet and depressing all
at the same time. We get some really great artworks by mysterious painters
in the shop fairly often. I have the urge to start collecting some of them,
but I know what a slippery slope that is! My collections are already pretty
out of hand as it is. But, still. I guess if I had nabbed the first creepy iris
painting, I would’ve had to get this one too, right? That’s a pretty obscure
genre: weird iris paintings! I suppose it’s really for the best. Alas, alack.

Instead, how about I collect real irises, and iris perfume?
I remember endlessly poring over iris catalogues with my
mama. Even then, I was obsessed with the pure black and
bright blue irises, the odd green ones and the bi-colors and
tiger striped ones. I love their regal beards and crazy names.
Irises are pretty metal, as far as flowers go. Case in point,
the one I can’t wait to order for my metal-loving blacksmith
boyfriend: Anvil of Darkness! Hell yes. We’re going to have
the most hardcore garden. So far, we have some lovely purple irises
that Violet planted, and white ones from our sweet botanist friend.
I have to wait until Fall to plant more, so in the meantime I’ve been
dabbling with Iris scents. I’d always wanted to try Bois d’Iris
by The Different Company, but I have to say – it’s just not ringing my bells.
The notes are: iris, vetiver, bergamot, cedar, narcissus, geranium and musk,
but I’m only getting old lady. My favorite perfume blog, Now Smell This
describes the sensation of wearing Bois d’Iris as “…closer to being in an
undergound tunnel, with the smell of damp wood and roots.”
I wish I could agree, as I feel like I’m missing the damp and earthen
root smell I crave. In Le Labo Iris 39 sounds more my style with iris
“as earthy and inviting as a rundown house with a wild garden”
I’d also love to try Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist one day,
though it’s probably too civilized for a beast like me.

“For Iris Silver Mist, for instance, the idea came to him
in a Moroccan bookshop that he should look for an iris
so refined, so almost grey, that it could be worn by a man
in a grey flannel suit as easily as by woman.
— From Seducer of The Senses,
a long profile of Serge Lutens in the Financial Times.

Sodden rose-petals on the front porch. Cross your fingers that it keeps
raining all spring. We need it! Our roses are going crazy – busting out
in fuschia and lavender all over the place. I do love me some wild roses.
I think these look like pomegranate kernels, do you see it too?

Mlle. Verhext’s sweetheart + husband to be, Mr. Lee
sent us the sweetest parcel filled with mangosteens (aka. mogwai eggs!)
and (holy cats) Amorphophallus konjac corms! We are going to have voodoo lilies!
Hello, dream come true! On a much graver note,
please, please send good finding energy to Tam’s friend Alex.
She’s been missing for almost a week now. If you’re in the Bay
Area, or have friends that are, please take a minute to re-post
the information about her. I can tell that she’s an amazing person,
and my heart is clenched up wondering where she is.

More treasures from Uncommon Objects:
the best rabbit brooch ever, a very handsome pocketwatch,
and some Victorian woven-hair mourning jewelry. I want it all.

Oh, and here’s another intriguing painting from the shop! Luckily,
my friend and colleague Jeff bought this one, so I can go visit it.
It was painted by a man named Richard Wilt,
in 1951. Jeff was so intrigued by it that he looked up some information,
and ended up talking on the phone to Richard’s widow! She remembered
the piece well, and was very happy to talk about her husband’s work.
Everything we come in contact with at Uncommon Objects has a story -
sometimes we make them up, but sometimes we get to solve mysteries.
Often, I can hold something old and let it tell me its story. Have you ever
had that sensation? Psychometry. I’d like to get better at it. By the way,
I really love my job – I’m super lucky to be able to work in such a creative
place that’s constantly stimulating my imagination with magic, history and art.
I’ve worked some awful jobs in the past though, and I wish I had read this
back then: ordinary magic – part 2 (via Lorra Faye and Gala Darling – thanks ladies!)

This one’s gonna be extra special, because not only is
my sweet brother Rusty Lazer coming all the way from New
Orleans, but he’s also bringing Miss Marion Ette to wow you
with her aerial dance skills, and Miss Altercation to teach you
all her moves! Ever wanted to learn how to twerk it right?
Here’s your chance: as of right now we still have 19 spaces
left for the A Bounce Dance Class with Miss Altercation herself!
It starts at 9pm, you gotta pre-register, and spaces are filling up!
Sliding scale- 10-20 bucks, for one hour. Send an email to:
bounceclass@gmail.com now to register!
Cost of the class includes FREE admission to the PARTY!
At 10pm we open the doors and roll out sets from
DJ Rusty Lazer
Christeene
DJ Chicken Kiev
Plus a very special aerial performance by Miss Marion Ette!
Hostessed by your very own Miss Angeliska!
Presented by the insatiable Glitoris!
Friday, April 16th at The Independent (ND, 501 Studios)
located at East 5th + Brushy.
This is gonna be a hot hot mess, dress appropriately,
or inappropriately if you got it and you wanna flaunt it!
More info and RSVP over on the Facebook.

Until then, here’s some dance party videos to get you in the mood:

Miss Altercation, Rocky and ReRe dancing
with Katey Red at Gay Bi Gay Gay 2010

Ass Everywhere from Nathan Brescia on Vimeo.

Super-fun times in Detroit!

Christeene! So very, very NSFW, okay?

5TH WARD WEEBIE & YA BOY BIG CHOO
Learn all these moves, and you’ll be alright!