Exquisite Corpse Presents:
AS THE WORLD FALLS DOWN
A Labyrinthine Masquerade Ball

Friday, February 3rd – 2012
10pm until 2am
SWAN DIVE
615 Red River

A night to enter the labyrinth and become a member
of the fairy court – don your tattered ballgowns, your
tightest breeches, and mysterious masques…
You know, you remind me of the babe…

I remember seeing this scene for the first time, and what an enormous impression it made on me –
it influenced my aesthetic indelibly. I just wanted the entire film to continue on in that ballroom…
For years, I’ve dreamed of trying to recreate that magic, and now – I finally get to give it a whirl…

I think I’m not alone in having practiced kissing on my Labyrinth poster with David Bowie as Jareth.
To me, he was the perfect man – a goblin prince who could steal me away to the Underground.
Hades and Persephone as retold by Jim Henson and Brian Froud. Dance, magic, dance.

There’s such a sad love
Deep in your eyes, a kind of pale jewel
Open and closed within your eyes
I’ll place the sky within your eyes

There’s such a fool heart
Beating so fast in search of new dreams
A love that will last within your heart
I’ll place the moon within your heart

As the pain sweeps through
Makes no sense for you
Every thrill has gone
Wasn’t too much fun at all
But I’ll be there for you
As the world falls down

I’ll paint you mornings of gold
I’ll spin you Valentine evenings
Though we’re strangers till now
We’re choosing the path between the stars
I’ll leave my love between the stars

Vogue Germany / photographer Ruven Afanador /

McQueen

Rima Hyena

Shiseido Magic

More Dior, J’adore.

Of course, we’d be delighted to see you all turned out like this…
By the by, Garbage Reign by Danil Golovkin may just
be the best thing I’ve ever seen.

…Or you could just glue a bunch of My Little Pony stickers on your face. That works too.

Just be there!

Vulpes Masquerade by Caitlin Hackett

Let’s get lost…

More inspiration here:
Labyrinthine Masquerade

I’m getting super excited about the playlist DJ Pasht & I have been putting together for Exquisite Corpse’s Labyrinthine Masquerade Ball tomorrow! Finally, we get an opportunity to play so much of my favorites: Qntl, Die Form, Dead Can Dance and a bunch of other gems I haven’t heard played in a club in far too long! Get ready to waltz & twirl to some seriously amazing music: think goth/medieval + 80′s/new wave with a healthy dose of witch house + disco noir! Klaus Nomi, Roxy Music & Stevie Nicks will also be making appearances. WHAT.

Exquisite Corpse Presents: As The World Falls Down A Labyrinthine Masquerade Mix by Miss Angeliska and Dj Pasht from pasht on 8tracks.

Love is colder than death – Non Lievi Alchun

Labyrinth Series – How To Make Your Own Goblin Ballroom Mask Part1

This last winter solstice, I had a profound vision during a ceremony:
an old black telephone appeared before me, hunched in celluloid,
with a rotary dial. I could feel the weight of the heavy receiver in my
hand – it was that real. I realized that I could call anyone in the world
on it, and I pondered for a minute, trying to think of who I’d like most
to talk to at that moment – one phone call, to the person whose voice
I’d most want to hear – until it hit me. My mama, of course. To talk to
her again, to be able to have even just one conversation with her –
I think sometimes I’d give almost anything to be able to do that.
My vision faded, and I can’t really recall being able to actually get
through to her – but it was almost more the radical notion that such
a thing could actually be possible that was amazing. That, and the
raw beast of my longing for her, long buried, suddenly so close to
my face, breathing rough right next to me – a wild, savage desire
just to have my mother back with me, even if only for a moment.

Here’s my mom talking about her favorite country songs on the radio (KUT Austin) with her friend Dan Foster.
I hadn’t heard her voice for twenty-five long years, until the day I got this recording.
Her voice is the most beautiful sound in the whole world.

Maggie Cook Polacheck – KUT by Angeliska

To receive the gift of this recording, a few months after that experience,
was such a balm to that deep wound. Her voice is orange-blossom honey
and tabasco, it is the sudden flutter of bird wings, it is soft as owlet’s fluff,
or a mimosa blossom. Her singular country accent: those long a’s and
dropped g’s that I hear in my aunt’s voice – in my own when I get drunk
or go back where I came from. Her cadence is one I used to carry, too.

So, my mother was obsessed with Hank Williams. I mean – really, truly, deeply.
Our first and only family vacation was to go to his grave in Montgomery, Alabama.
She became penpals with his sister. I think she was in love with him, in a way –
in love with a lanky gray ghost, with a crooked smile and a voice that hits you
like bourbon on an empty belly – raw guts churning with lonely lost love.
I inherited her predilection for tall, skinny men with cruel lips and sad eyes,
for wastrels with hearts full of song, careening through life wearing the albatross
that is an incurable awesome death-wish around their scrawny necks. Luckily,
I got over all that a while back. I’m not sure if she ever did. Beautiful disasters
don’t really turn me on anymore – too much damage done, too many old scars…
But oh, those star-crossed troubadours! How compelling they can be.

In the same week that I received the gift of her voice, I also took a horrible blow:
I found out that the works of art she had spent the last months of her
life creating had been lost, irrevocably. It was about this worst news
I could imagine hearing – almost like losing her all over again.
This includes the painting of Hank Williams above, a work I consider her masterpiece,
the pinnacle of her creative life – her swan song. I remember her painting it, vividly.
The vintage print she took the background from, with the sheep in the moonlit pasture
hung in our kitchen. Those cactus flowers bloomed on our back patio – I remember her
photographing them. The tie Hank’s wearing is one of my dad’s – he has it still.
His hands are so beautifully done, so articulate and perfectly rendered – and his face,
his face… Rarely does any artist capture the sensitive angles and gaunt beauty that
was Hank William’s gorgeous sad face – and now to think of all that lost, to know
that it probably ended up in some dumpster, never to be seen again – it kills me.
Her dear friend who she sold them to moved cross country, and discovered upon
unpacking that the movers had somehow overlooked them. I mean, who knows –
they could be hanging above some dude’s ugly couch in a ratty trailer somewhere
in Utah. You never do know. I won’t give up hope that they’ll turn up one day,
and make their way back to me. I can barely begin to describe how badly this
discovery crushed me. For many years, I have been trying to put back together
the puzzle pieces of my mother’s life – to write about her, and to work through
this tangle of briars her death made of my heart. I’ve been fighting through that
thicket since I was a child – searching for clues, for shreds of her legacy.

When I listen to these old country songs, it’s like a message from beyond:
each one is so heartbroken, and totally unashamed. I think that’s what I love
about country music – it’s not self-conscious about coming off as maudlin –
it’s just genuine feeling, even if that feeling is crying down in a ditch,
or being blue because your son calls another man daddy. It’s having the gumption
to pick up a guitar and sing a song about it, through the tears, through the pain.
All this music that she loved so fervently, all her life – it feels like she knew
somehow, that I’d need this music one day, too. Just the song titles, even:
“When God Comes and Gathers His Jewels”
“Alone and Forsaken”
“Don’t Go”
and oh, “Crying Heart Blues”

Crying the blues
I’m crying because I have lost you
Blues I can’t lose
I guess it’s too late now to try
I’ve tried to chose another to love but it’s no use
Crying heart blues, there’s nothing that’s left but to cry

I’ll always remember I love you
My teardrops won’t let me forget
Each tear is a wish to be near you
They started the day that we met
A trail of tears will lead you to me if you want me
And from my fears, how hopeless, my crying heart flees

Yesterday I happened across this bit of wisdom from Dear Sugar, (who is beyond amazing)
responding to a woman who had miscarried her baby daughter, and found herself consumed
with grief. Her advice rang true for me, and came to me at the perfect time, so I’ll share it here:

This is how you get unstuck. You reach. Not so you can walk away from the daughter you loved,
but so you can live the life that is yours—the one that includes the sad loss of your daughter,
but is not arrested by it. The one that eventually leads you to a place in which you not only grieve her,
but also feel lucky to have had the privilege of loving her. That place of true healing is a fierce place.
It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have
to work really, really, really fucking hard to get there, but you can do it, honey. You’re a woman who can
travel that far. I know it. Your ability to get there is evident to me in every word of your bright shining grief star of a letter.

So, this is me reaching.
These are too:

Foxes in the Rain

Triumvirate Lemniscate

Gustav + Mama – August 8th

Before the Joanna Newsom concert at the Paramount. It’s so lovely to see her play there, in that big grand place.
This time and the last, I couldn’t help the tears that just popped out of my eyes and kept flowing, unwished for,
unbidden. Last time, it was “Cosmia” that did it, but that’s a given. This time, only three songs in, “Easy” unexpectedly
slew me, and then “Cosmia” kept it going. I’m trying to get better at weeping. I’m a pretty ugly crier, all red faced,
snot-strewn and crumpled. Maybe it goes easier if you don’t fight it like I’ve been doing all my life. When music moves
me, or a sad film, a book, or a painting – I give myself over as wholly as I can manage. I try and just let it come and
wash over me, run down my face and keep going, deeper into what I am being given: this art, this feeling, this moment.

It’s funny, because I never noticed the lyric from the end of “Easy” until that night – “Speak my name, and I appear.”
Perhaps Miss Newsom is some sylph that can be beckoned in this way, because she did just that once – or twice, that I can
think of… It’s a long story, but I had been saving some little treasures to gift her, in return for all the beauty she’s bestowed
on my life with her songs. I grabbed them by impulse one morning on my way out the door, late already, but still I felt the
weird sting of sight that made me run back inside for them, and then forget as soon as I got to work. By the end of the day,
I lingered over a stack of constellation cards like the one with the sea-monster on it above. I had to choose which ones to buy,
and which must be put back into circulation, and it was very hard, because they’re all so wonderful – with little holes poked in
where the stars shine through when you hold them up, aligned with their originals spangling the night sky. I chose the seamonster,
the unicorn, the lynx, and then paused over Ursa Major, thinking “Oh, this one I ought to keep to give to Joanna, for Ursala in
“Monkey and Bear.” At that moment, the bell over the door clattered and in slipped a cute fourteen year old wrapped in an old
red and black flannel, with a brooch-studded tam perched over one ear. I tried not to goggle, with those constellations shivering
in my hand when I realized it was none other! I wrote a quick note of thanks on the back of the bear, and gathered those treasures
I had unthinkingly run back in for – a silver Victorian owl buckle, a little tin of pretty bits, blue morpho butterfly wings, and went to
summon up my guts to give them to her. She was dear and kind, and even teary – but I had to hug her and run away quick before
I fell over. So that’s my story – Miss Melissa Petitchou has another one, that’s similar – it starts and ends with a bell, a thought of her
and then she appeared. Maybe she’ll share it with us if we ask very, very nicely. Oh, won’t you Miss? Oh, do!

On my letter writing desk (where very few letters ever get written, alas! Hopefully that shall change soon.)
Green frog ink bottle, fairy compact that was my Nonnie’s, tintype, Mint Humbugs tin filled with pen nibs,
ink sticks and calligraphy accessories in brocade boxes, embroidery of a wishing well by Holly Bobisuthi.

Discovering a latent love of yellow. Saffron, really. Goldenrod. Especially together with deep teal. Oh my, yes.

I re-hung all the art on the walls, scrubbed and dusted until I was sneezing black! More evidence
to come. (Of the fanciness and sparkle of my fresh studio, not of my sodden tissues or whatever.)

Book altar.

Wooden friends.

Eulalia Chrysanthemum in her winter hat.

Treasures.

My electric stereoscope and a hand-stuffed quail Sarahfina taxidermied for my birthday.

My instruments. I play the ocean harp much better than I manage the ukulele, I’m afraid.

Hey, hey – last light of day.

I’m getting excited about the theme for the upcoming Exquisite Corpse – The Left Eye of Horus.
Norah came up with it, and I’m so glad because it’s given me the opportunity to explore an aesthetic
that I’ve always found very alluring: Egyptian Goth. I call it that, but really it’s a mish-mash of traditional
and fantastical styles from a variety of Middle Eastern countries and peoples. The bleak tales of death in
the desert from The Sheltering Sky, and the wraithed, black-clad shapes, of kohl-eyed, tattooed Berber
women shimmering on the horizon planted the seed, which grew into a lush little oasis: a stark vision in
black and white, hung with hammered silver and gold. Heavy clouds of incense, sharply scented with
Sandalwood, papyrus, lotus, and sycamore. These are embalming herbs, for canning hearts in canopic jars.
Bear with me while I wax rhapsodic, won’t you? The mysteries from the fertile crescent continue to inspire, even
as in modern Egypt, at the very moment I write this, Hosni Mubarak is standing (or laying down on a bed in a
cage, actually) trial for the murders of over 850 peaceful protesters who died fighting for change from the days
of ancient Egypt – when pharoahs could hold a throne hostage for generations while amassing untold riches
If you’re interested in keeping up with what’s happening in Egypt, I can’t recommend a better source than Mona Eltahawy.
I had the pleasure of meeting her last year, and we struck up an immediate connection. We talked about writing, but at
the time, I had no idea that she was an award-winning columnist or a total information powerhouse on Arab and Muslim
issues, until January 25th. I had come across her card, and decided to start following her Twitter feed, which is pretty much
the most up to the minute source for whatever’s going down in Egypt politically at any given moment. She’s truly amazing.

Sapho – Methylene

So, in part this post is dedicated to some strong women – Mona, my friend Zahra-Jane, and also Oum Khalthoum (who I’ll get to later…)
Zahra and I were Livejournal friends from way back, and finally had the pleasure of meeting one another for real recently in Chicago.
She has an incredible aesthetic sense and has turned me on to so much awesome stuff over the years. For this post in particular, I asked
her to recommend any treasures I might be overlooking, and she sent me some wonders, indeed. I also heavily pillaged her kick-ass tumblr
The Signs in the Stars and her beautiful blog, Black Celebration – go check out both and be delighted and inspired! I can’t thank her enough for showing me Sapho, a moroccan singer who hung out with Siouxsie in the 80′s and made awesome egyptian-inspired new wave!

Siouxsie and the Banshees – Arabian Knights

I collect khamsas (or hands of Fatima) – my grandmother always wore a big silver filigree one when she traveled,
and I remember always being fascinated and drawn to it. I wear it when I fly, and treasure it immensely. Sacred hands.

Givenchy Haute Couture Fall Winter 2009/2010 Full Show

I am FEELING this show so deeply. Knockin’ ‘em cold in black + gold is my permanent fashion motto,
and this just does it all for me. Now where can I get my hands on piles and piles of gold headdresses,
elaborately wrought paillettes, handfuls of massive knuckledusters, et cetera? I need it all by tomorrow.

I love these headdresses:

Dying for this one, made by my girl Miss Arielle de Pinto – her work is beyond fabulous. I desire silvery mounds of it.

Not sure where this one came from, but I sure do love it.

Sequin masks from the Givenchy show… DIY, y’all!

I love this photo of Inga & Anush Arshakyans. Watch out if you click on this link – the video is whoa.
They’re Armenian, but whatever – they look rad.

Oum, Umm, Oumme, Ümmü, OM!

From Zahra-Jane’s killer post on Oum Kalthoum
“The details of a woman. Oum Kalthoum. b. December 31st, circa 1900-1904, Egypt. the capricorn. Star of Egypt.
Queen of tarab, which is that…”this is MY JAM” feeling you get. Tarab is like a state beyond enjoyment, a state of
almost oneness and total ecstasy with the song. There is also a level of audience participation, the crowd moves the singer,
who moves the crowd, which allows an especially spiritual element which decades later, you feel listening to these recordings.
Enchantment is a popular translation, but the word seems almost too quaint for what I feel when I hear Oum Kalthoum.
It is no shock that she has inspired some of my favorite artists, from Nico, to Maria Callas.”

1938 Kodachrome film of two Ouled Nail dancers. Silent.
I recommend that you watch it while playing the track below.

Egyptian lover – Egypt Egypt

Pola Negri

From a 1970′s Playboy magazine

Nefertiti by Youssef Nabil

Shirin Neshat by Youssef Nabil

Kate performs “Egypt” on a 1979 Christmas special.
She is so bonkers. God, I love her.

Follow the Nile
Deep to much deeper.
The Pyramids sound lonely tonight.

She’s got me with that feline guise,
Got me in those desert eyes.
She’s got me with that feline guise,
Got me in those desert eyes.
Oh I’m in love
With Egypt.

I had the pleasure of meeting Maria Dahvana Headley, author of Queen of Kings,
(my own copy is tantalizing me at this very moment from my nightstand!)
recently – she is a fiercely joyous hummingbird of a woman, who I immediately adored.
We had discussed creating an event around her book-signing here in Austin to celebrate
her new work, which is all about vampires and monsters in ancient Egypt. It didn’t work
out time-wise, but the inspiration lingered – so I’ll dedicate this Exquisite Corpse to her
as well! I can’t wait to delve into this world she’s created…

Another book that comes to mind when developing this theme is an old favorite – Storm Constatine’s Wraeththu, a trilogy that shaped many of my views about style, gender, magic and provided a beautiful vision of a post-human, post-apocalypse future.

Illan Riviere is a consumate androgynous Wraeththu Har – and one of the most incredible dancers I’ve ever seen.

From ZJ’s post on Propaganda Magazine

The Sisters Of Mercy – Temple Of Love (Featuring Ofra Haza)

This was my number one favorite song throughout much of my childhood. I was (and still am) so, so into it.
During the 2011 Egyptian Revolution the song enjoyed a surge in popularity among the younger population of protesters:

All the old paintings on the tombs
They do the sand dance don’t you know
If they move too quick (oh way oh)
They’re falling down like a domino

Foreign types with the hookah pipes say
Ay oh way oh, ay oh way oh
Walk like an Egyptian

Natacha Atlas – Leysh Natarak

The Brooklyn-based artist Swoon, who may know from her beautiful wheat-pasted cut-out street art (and the following flotillas:
Miss Rockaway Armada, Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea, Swimming Cities of Serenissima) is bringing a landmark, permanent
sculpture to the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. This “house” also functions as a musical instrument. A growing group of
local and national sound artists are creating interactive instruments that will be built into its walls and floorboards so that visitors
can bring the house to life through their touch. How does a house sing? How does it keep a beat? Can a house be played like a trumpet?
These are the kind of questions will be answering this fall when we launch The Music Box – A Shantytown Sound Laboratory, which is the
first incarnation of what will evolve into Dithyrambalina. Our prototypes will gather together in a musical village of singing shanties!

Swoon’s “Ice Queen”, (currently debuting at MOCA, Los Angeles’ Art in the Streets exhibition).
Screen print on paper, coffee stained and hand painted, 2′x3′, signed in an edition of ten.
Happy to say that all three of these beautiful pieces went to each of our awesome Kickstarter backers who pledged $3000 or more!

We are very excited to be collaborating with Elizabeth Shannon, a hero of the New Orleans art world since the 1970′s on the shanty
that will shelter our piece TINTINNABULATION STATION. This temporary installation will run from October thru early January and will
be built on the future site of the Dithyrambalina in the New Orleans Bywater neighborhood. Over the course of the exhibition we will
welcome visitors, hold children’s workshops, and present a three-part series of performances featuring local and national musicians who
will orchestrate original works on the devices. Check out our fellow artists, also – we’re amongst great company of some dear friends and many future friends! I’d love it if you’d take a moment to go read more about this project – the whys and wherefores, the inspirations, and the spirit behind it. I’m so proud to be a part of this beautiful thing! The Dithrambalina Kickstarter Campaign ends Thursday Jul 28, 8:49am,
and not only did meet our goal, but nearly doubled it! However – any and all additional pledges are appreciated and needed! Additional funding will go towards build costs for the Dithyrambalina house, developing more instrumentation, and paying our artists and musicians
for all their hard work. We would all be so grateful for any donations, and for any help spreading the word about this project!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Swoon and Sound Collaborator Taylor Shepherd Discuss the Project

P.S. Have you been wondering why Swoon calls the musical house Dithyrambalina?
The root of the name comes from the ancient Greek work dithyramb. A dithyramb
was the chant of wild abandon sung by the devotees of Dionysus to call for their God.

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest and wine, and he connotes ritual madness
and ecstasy in Greek mythology. He is generally depicted as an enchantingly beautiful
man attended by a debauched procession of animals, dancers, and music makers.
Suffice it to say that Dionysus has never missed a Mardi Gras in New Orleans!
– from the Dithyrambalina blog, which is chockablock with good stuff – go see!

✸ Really enjoying Martine Johanna lately. Beautiful work.

✸ Lori Field’s Forest Stories
I also really love these encaustic paintings. Wonderful, dreamy colors.
“Lori Field’s paintings depict a world where animals and humans live together in enchanted forests
filled with two headed skeleton kittens, Tiger goose head cows, and baby ram angels.”

“Virvon, varvon/tuoreeks, terveeks, tulevaks vuodeks/sulle vitsa/ mulle palkka”
✸ I LOVE this holiday: Virvon, varvon…
“I will wish, whisk and whack/ you health and happiness/
for this new season/ for you the branch/ for me the prize.”

✸ The wonderful Slavic folktale styled graphic work of Tin Can Forest is making me very happy.
“The deep, dark forest of our collective unconscious has never seemed more beautiful and mysterious
than in the images of Tin Can Forest. The Toronto-based team of artists Pat Shewchuk and Marek Colek
spin tales where barter-happy demons and animal spirits, drawn from Slavic folklore, walk in step with
witches and villagers. We caught up with Tin Can Forest to ask them about their work and new book
‘Baba Yaga and the Wolf’ from Koyama Press.”

✸ The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga
“The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga examines man’s interaction with the mythic woodlands of Eastern Europe,
detailing the bloody history and complex psychologies that transformed the forest from a conceptually sinister space into
a realm of precious security. Mushroom hunting provides a passageway into the history of the region and helps reveal the
roles that woodlands play in the psychology and sociology of fear, imagination, and survival.

Baba Yaga was vanquished by necessity when refugees of war and social unrest fled to her woods for shelter, nourishment, and
sanctuary. Drawing on fairy tales, folklore, and personal recollections, The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga examines how
the collective, social memory of Eastern Europe both shaped and shapes local relationships with the forest.”
This looks really wonderful. Watch the promo video!

✸ Eastern Europe’s Evil Granny Rules Two New Novels, “Deathless” and “Baba Yaga Laid An Egg”
I’m reading both of these right now. So, so good!

A candid shot from Devaki Knowles of me applying my lip-rouge at the most recent Vintage Vivant.
The next one’s theme is Storyville Bordello! Scandalous! Salacious! Shocking!

Another treasure from Pink Tentacle – Anatomical illustrations from Edo-period Japan
This anatomical illustration is from the book Kanshin Biyō, by Bunken Kagami.

From Joanna Ebenstein’s “Private Cabinets” Photo Series, Volume 1: Barrister’s Gallery, “Morbid Anatomy Cabinet” Exhibition

From the Home Collection of Evan Michelson, Antiques Dealer, New Jersey

My pals Dark Dark Dark were just here in Austin, and made me fall in love with them all over again.
This is one of my favorite songs of theirs. I sing it all day long, and so will you, I hope.

Tell me what you celebrate
It isn’t hard to do…
Do you love me?
Do you love that paint?
Exposing the brick
They’re crumbling a bit
Do you love the bees
Fly over our heads
Race into the woods
Make honey so sweet

And tell me what you celebrate
It isn’t hard to do
Do you love me
A walk on the street
Oh lavender!
The scent fills the air
Oh remember
The hand sewn quilt
We laid on it there
We laid on it there…

✸ As Above So Below
My friend Bruce Webb has an exhibition of some of his impressive
collection of fraternal order paraphernalia up at Domy Books this month.

✸ My darling dearest Dana Sherwood has a new project called All My Dresses
“Archiving twenty years of collecting vintage dresses, some have been destroyed,
some have been “borrowed”, none have been intentionally discarded.”

Thvm ✸ Rag for Arielle de Pinto from mary-catharine anderson on Vimeo.

A beautiful video featuring my friend Miss Arielle de Pinto‘s gorgeous woven chain jewelry.

✸ Look at Me, I’m Crying
A beautiful piece on crying in public in New York City. I can relate, having found myself doing just that, far too often,
on my last excursion up there. Maybe it was the insidious combination of mercury retrograde and vicious sinus infection
that made me more susceptible than usual to uncontrollably weeping on streetcorners, park benches, Duane Reade,
the backs of various taxis. It was kind of ridiculous. I remember being sandwiched on a bench between a henna-haired
bag lady and a lanky teenage boy reading an old science fiction paperback. They just shared the space with me,
and let me cry – oblivious or unbothered, but it was oddly peaceable. The Nigerian cab driver was much more
disturbed, begging me to stop my weeping, and promising to somehow help me figure out how to get from Prospect
Park South to Williamsburg in fifteen minutes. Yeah, that didn’t end up working out, but he was very nice to me.
“If you live in New York, you’re bound to end up crying in public eventually; there just aren’t enough private places.
Just the other day I saw someone doing it on West 12th Street. A tall woman in a beret, with a curtain of reddish hair,
she had tears streaming down her cheeks. She wasn’t on the phone, wasn’t accompanied by a man, or a mom or even
a dog. She wasn’t beautiful, the way a lot of people in New York are, but I couldn’t look away.”

I love this beauty from Jeremy Enecio – thank you, Mlle. Wurzeltod!

✸ Her Voice in My Head I love, love, love
this piece by Emma Forrest about Kate Bush in the Paris Review. Go read it RIGHT NOW!

Caresse P-Orridge & Sickmob – “R. U. Experienced?”

✸ Two new scientific studies reveal hallucinogens are good for your mental health

✸ Ruslana Korshunova – The Lost Girl
Why did a supermodel at the top of her game—hauntingly beautiful and only 20—kill herself in 2008?
A filmmaker describes his three-year quest for clues, and answers.

✸ The Lost Boys
“In December 1970 two teenagers disappeared from the Heights neighborhood, in Houston.
Then another and another and another. As the number of missing kids grew, no one realized
that the most prolific serial killer the country had ever seen—along with his teenage accomplices—
was living comfortably among them. Or that the mystery of what happened to so many of his
victims would haunt the city to this day.”

✸ The exceptional mourning of twins
From Mind Hacks:
“I’ve just found an amazing article that looks at how the death of twins is mourned in cultures around the world.
The journal Twin Research and Human Genetics is usually dedicated to the science of twin studies –
a key method for understanding the role of genetics and the environment on the development of human traits.
In 2002 they had a special issue that took a very different look at the subject – examining grief and mourning related to twins.
One of the articles is a stunning look at the anthropology of twin death, exploring the diverse and intriguing beliefs and practices concerning twin death.”

Articles about three heroes of mine:
✸ The Official Justin Bond

✸ The Invisible Scent – Christopher Brosius

✸ Poly Styrene (3 July 1957 – 25 April 2011) from Coilhouse

✸ the greening life from Moonshine Junkyard
These same thoughts have been buzzing around my brain, but I didn’t have a word to hold them close – until now: viriditas!
“the light green heart of the living fullness of nature.”
Thanks for this, Tam.

O much neglected corner of the world – little quiet place where I come to lay down my findings,
hollowed-out tree trunk where I store treasure. I am embarrassed at how little I’ve been able to
find the time, the wherewithal, the peace of mind to write here. Too much has been happening
for one heart to hold, much less one little snippet of a post here. It’s been a strange and heavy time,
during which I’ve been struggling to keep up, keep my head above water, find a moment to breathe in.
In the swarm of activity following Mardi Gras and during SXSW, I returned to find my favorite person
in the world depleted and depressed – my 97 year old grandfather, Charlie, went into the hospital on
New Year’s Eve, and had been transferred to a glorified nursing home, where he withered like an
unwatered houseplant. I felt the horror and guilt of Beauty returning to the Beast’s castle to find him
fading fast, dying on the flagstones. I’d never seen my Grandpa laid so low, so unhappy and without
hope. A few days later, he started vomiting blood, and was rushed to the emergency room. I’ve never
been so terrified, so broken at the thought of losing him. It sounds absurd, I suppose – coming from me,
since I’ve lost so many dear ones already. I am used to death, in a way – and I do prepare myself for it,
perhaps more than is healthy. But not with him. How ridiculous to be totally in denial about the mortality
of someone so advanced in years, right? But I am, I have been – for a long time now, totally unwilling to
even consider the possibility of him not being here. Same with my dad, who recently went through chemo
and radiation for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. To have both of them so threatened at once? Beyond horrifying.
Every day, I stifled a silent scream at the thought of my Papa and Grandpa laid so low, of losing them.
Instead, I sucked in my fear and loathing of hospitals, and made my voice a bright thing, a shiny balloon
filled with hopefulness, rising towards the ceiling. I stood by my Grandpa’s bed for hours, holding his hands
and giving him everything I had, praying desperately that he could recover strength to his suffering kidneys,
to his legs, his lungs, his heart. Miraculously, all of our prayers were answered, and he did grow stronger, and
became much happier, especially since we told him he never had to go back to that nursing home/rehabilitation
center he’d been trying out. I’d lay awake at night, unable to sleep, consumed with worry, with fury, at the thought
of him laying alone there. What a grave injustice that someone who has lived such a long and fascinating life should
find themselves at the other end of it, in a place that affords them so little dignity. How awful, that there should be so
few options for the elderly in this country – particularly since we’re living longer and longer lives. The sad thing is
that the place he was in was actually one of the better ones around – he chose it after visiting the nursing home
recommended by the hospital and finding it to be “a warehouse for storing people who are at the end of their lives”
(his words). Nursing homes throughout America are chronically understaffed and underfunded, with food that I
literally wouldn’t feed to my dogs. Seriously – mystery meat and baloney sandwiches? You can get better food in prison.
In the midst of all this, poor Japan suffered her violent shiftings, and the whole world seemed on the verge of some
great reckoning. My grandparents visited Japan in the 80′s, before my grandmother became too frail for travel.
I remember seeing pictures of her dolled up in a kimono like a tiny, ancient geisha. They loved it there, and told
me many stories about everything they saw and experienced. Grampa loved the Noh and Kabuki theater, and brought
back masks for his collection. We had hoped to go back together, but he decided he wasn’t up for travel a few years back.

The entrance of a cave at Enoshima Island – Soshu Enoshima Iwaya-no dzu
ANDO HIROSHIGE – FAMOUS PLACES IN JAPAN

I still have never been there. One day, I shall. For the last few years, Grampa has given me big, beautiful editions of the collected
prints of Hiroshige for my birthday. I’ve been paging through them lately, admiring the elegance of line depicting many
formerly serene coastlines and villages I know are now destroyed. I’ve been thinking about the way the elderly are regarded
in Japanese culture – as integral and important members of society, to be respected and honored – not shoved in old people
jails and forgotten about the way we do here. Or maybe that’s been changing there too. I’ve been thinking about the tidal wave
dreams I used to have, about not trying to outrun them anymore, but instead trying to face them head-on, standing with arms open:
letting the waves of sorrow wash over me, letting them take what they will from me. This is hard, maybe the hardest thing I have ever
done – trying to accept this inevitable loss. I can’t bear the thought of it. Can’t stomach hearing well-meaning friends telling me things
that only make them feel better, like: “He’s had a long, full life…” or “Think of how lucky you are to have had that time together…”
I don’t want to hear it. I want him to live forever. Is that so much to ask? When you love someone deeply, there’s never enough time.

The (very, very, very!) good news is that Charlie’s doing much better lately – we found a really wonderful assisted living facility that
feels more like a home than a hospital, and he likes it there. His spirits are higher, and his overall health has improved. We have been
watching movies together – most recently “The King of Masks”, an amazing film about an aged street performer who practices the
change-mask opera art of bian lian. Grampa instilled a love of Chinese Opera in me early on, but I had never heard of or seen bian
lian before. Between Charlie’s love of masks, and a plot about a grandfather and granddaughter’s profound love, I knew I absolutely
had to find a way to share this movie with him. The first time I watched it, I found myself bawling like a child by the end. Luckily, I was
able to keep it more or less together when we watched it recently. He loved it as much as I had hoped, and we have a date to watch
Cocteau’s “La Passion de Jeanne D’Arc” together soon. Also on our list: “The Last Laugh”, “Casque D’or”, and “Amélie”.

(Please excuse the overwrought trailer with melodramatic voice-over.
I promise this film is worth seeing!)

I just got The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (finally!) and am devouring it. I ordered a large print copy
for Grampa to read, as I think he’ll enjoy it too. I fortuitously discovered David Mitchell on our last journey
abroad – I fell horribly ill in Athens, and was confined to bed for several days with a violent stomach bug.
Luckily, the hotel gift shop had a reasonable selection of reading material. I hesitated over the hot pink and
metallic blue fanfare of Cloud Atlas’ paperback cover, but it was just to curious to not investigate. I have a
vivid memory of being weakly tucked into a pillow fort, and being exhausted, but not being able to stop
reading. I turned to Grampa then, and told him, “This guy Mitchell is really, really, really good!” Oh my, isn’t
he? I love everything he’s done so far, and I can’t wait for him to write dozens more books. Hurry, hurry!
Oh, and – of course, the cover illustration features a print by none other than Ando Hiroshige. Perfect, that.

Gifts from my grandfather: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo and
The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaido

Books and movies are definitely my drug of choice lately. Somebody else’s lives. Blessed escape.
I’ve been running on empty for awhile, and have been struggling to repair myself, stitch my soul
back together. Fortunately, I’ve found an amazing person who’s helping me with that: Elaine Dove.
She’s a healer, counselor, artist, and teacher who has working with me, and even such in a relatively
short amount of time, has helped me immensely. I feel lucky to have found someone I trust to do this
work with me, and to help me process through this deep pain. It’s pretty incredible to have someone
tell me that I can rest as much as I need to heal, and to be told that I don’t have to let my grandfather
go before I’m ready to. Sometimes I really need to be given permission to give myself what I know I need.
Elaine is using the Tara Approach, an energy medicine system with its roots in Jin Shin Jyutsu,
a five element based meridian system of healing and balancing the nervous system.
Here’s something Elaine wrote on the subject of loss that stuck with me:

“There’s so much we long for. Loss makes us vulnerable, brings to the surface that which isn’t finished,
may never be finished. It may well be a fantasy that we get to finish everything we want to during the
course of a short and precious human life. At least, it seems like a fantasy to me. As someone who is
given the privilege of burrowing deeply into the lives of others like a little vole with good intentions,
there’s always another tunnel that opens, another rock to dig up, another tree root to burrow around.
It never ends until it ends. You don’t end up coming out where you went in. Then you’re not in the same
place any more. But you remember where you started. It’s an integral part of being human, to remember.”

✸ Pinetop Perkins, Delta Boogie-Woogie Master, Dies at 97 – I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Perkins,
on several occasions. He was performing up until almost the end of his life.
I remember the sparkle that shone through the gray
haze of his cataracted eyes, and his long, elegant hands.
He was the same age as my Grampa is now when he died.

✸ Hiroshige: A Fantastical Melding of Life, Land and Sea

✸ Mass Graves the Only Option for Many Japan Tsunami Victims

✸ On The Borderland in Okinawa – I’ve been reading Mlle. OTBL’s accounts of her adventures,
and came across this beautiful poem:
Be not defeated by the rain, nor let the wind prove your better.
Succumb not to the snows of winter. Nor be bested by the heat of summer.

This is my goal, the person I strive to become.

—Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933), 雨ニモマケズ (Ame ni mo makezu), trans. by David Sulz
(The poem was found posthumously in a small black notebook in one of the poet’s trunks.)

My old friend Sxip Shirey and his band, Gentlemen & Assassins, wrote this song called “Grandpa Charlie”.
I’ve decided it’s about my very own Grampa Charlie, though I reckon he may have one too.
I love his introduction: “You know, this is a song about your grandfather, your grandfather,
your grandfather – when your grandfather was young, hot, and fucking sexy as shit.”

I know Grandpa would say, “Too loud!” – which is what he said when I took him to see
Gogol Bordello in Chicago. Eugene dedicated a song to him that night. It’s our job to dance now,
dance for them, our favorite old men – our grandfathers. I think I can handle that much.

“I might be 31 years old, but I’ve just begun.”
She is forever my hero.

★ This incredible interview with Sleazy is prefaced by an almost even more wonderful
introduction about counter-culture in the 80′s and early 90′s. Really, really good stuff:
This Mortal Coil: A Final Report on Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson

★ 2012 The End of the World – from Information Is Beautiful
Curious about what might happen in 2012? This fabulous infographic pits the skeptics
against the believers and analyzes the evidence from both that might save you a lot
of time spent combing through articles about geomagnetic reversal and consciousness shifts.

★ The Mystery of the Red Bees of Red Hook
“…Mr. Selig said there was something extraordinary, too, about those corn-syrup-happy bees
that came flying back this summer. ‘When the sun is a bit down, they glow red in the evenings,’
he said. ‘They were slightly fluorescent. And it was beautiful.’”

(Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Gold vein Overprinted over Spanish moiré on Turkish pattern
from the University of Washington Decorated and Decorative Paper Collection.)

★ The ever-marvelous BibliOdyssey always has just the thing to float my boat:
Marbled Paper Designs
I’ve been obsessed with marble paper ever since I was a child. I got it from my mother,
who collected anything marbleized. It is totally psychedelic. Making it is basically the
most fun thing in the world (if you’re me, that is.) The first time I visited New York, I was
around seventeen. I was staying with a friend of friends on the Upper West Side and it
was Christmastime. I just happen to be wearing the exact same carrot oil face cream
that I had found during that time to combat the moisture-sucking dryness of the radiators
in Tom Piechowski’s apartment, and I’m having a powerful olfactory memory which I think
I’ll share with you now. Whenever I smell this stuff (it’s Burt’s Bees, and it really does work),
I am instantly transported back to that moment in time. The cold tiles in the bathroom, all
of Tom’s exciting books, the homemade chocolate chip cookies someone had given him,
and my first northern winter. It was so cold, that every exposed inch of skin would shriek
in pain until you got indoors. I had just read Nicolas Christopher’s Veronica and so insisted
on finding Tibetan restaurants that served bocha, hot black tea with yak butter, and smoking
clove cigarettes. Veronica is a good book to read if you happen to be in New York in the winter
(another one is A Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin.) This story does actually have to do with marbled
paper – bear with me if you have a minute. I was spending a lot of my time wandering alone around
the alien, snow-muffled city streets, much like the characters in both of those books, and this one day, I had
an epic walking adventure, that began with me “taking a short-cut” through Central Park, where I consumed
most a bottle of very good French wine that Tom had foisted upon me, and tried to sit and write letters on a
log by a frozen pond. My fingers were too cold, and the winos were circling, so I ended up leaving the rest by
a tree, and heading to the Guggenheim to commune with my boyfriends, Mr. Cornell and Mr. Bellmer.
When I left, it was quite dark, but I had it in mind that I needed to try a Lexington Avenue Egg Cream,
which I found at the Lexington Avenue Candyshop. It had by then become exceedingly cold,
and I was a bit lost, wandering around aimlessly until I spied a very interesting-looking bookstore…
The owner was an old man, very intense, animated, and quite rude. He seemed to be playing a game
of chess against himself, which he was none to happy about me interrupting. His store was a wonder,
filled ceiling-high with beautiful first editions and remarkable hand-bound books he had created, with
tooled leather covers and marbled flyleaves. Being a book-binding enthusiast, I began to ply him with
questions, which he seemed happy enough to answer as long as it served to keep my grubby fingers
off of his pretty books. I have this odd talent, it seems, for taming the orneriest and most curmudgeonly
of shopkeepers. The trick is to show them empathy and appreciation while continuing to ask them more
and more questions every time they make motions towards kicking you out and closing up. Eventually,
I had him more or less docile, and I inquired as to whether he might have any marble paper scraps lying
around that I might have. He hemmed and hawed and grumbled and grizzled, all the while leading me
down a rickety little elf staircase to a basement workshop where all the book-magic happened. He flung
his hand towards a vast heap of the most gorgeous examples of marbled paper I had ever seen, and told
me to take as much as I could carry. I stood stunned for a minute before scrambling to gather up big
sheaves and loaded up a garbage bag full. I have no idea how I managed to lug it all across town!
Did I take a taxi? I doubt I had any money for one at the the time. I still have some of that gorgeous
paper – a bit of it survived Hurricane Katrina. The rest was used for countless art projects, gifts,
collages, and eventually my own experiments in bookbinding. All my New York stories are shaggy
dogs, because you can’t just get somewhere there. You have to go through all sorts of adventures
and turnings that make what you find at the end that much more rewarding. I have lots of stories like
that, but this one was brought to you by my acute olfactory-memory triggers, and by the letters N, Y and C.

Full set of marbled paper designs on flickr

★ My new favorite vintage paper ephemera blog: Agence Eureka (mille merci, Cousin E.!)

✷ I adore Forgotten Bookmarks,
a beautifully presented blog from Michael, who lives in Oneonta, NY. He works in a bookstore,
and keeps a record of all of the odd things he finds tucked into the old books. I once asked a
librarian what were the most unusual objects used as bookmark she had every come across:
she told me the best was a hundred dollar bill. The worst – a piece of cooked, greasy bacon.

✷ I recently stumbled back across this piece from Two Four Flinching on photography in New York’s
graffiti-covered subways in the 1980′s, and thought it was too special not to share. What a different era.
Beautiful images from Bruce Davidson, John F. Conn, Jamel Shabazz and Martha Cooper:
Subway, lifeblood.

“I wanted to transform the subway from its dark, degrading, and impersonal reality into images
that open up our experience again to the color, sensuality, and vitality of the individual souls that
ride it each day.” In “Subway”, passengers of the city’s subterranean world are portrayed in detail,
revealing the interplay of its inner landscape and outer vistas, set against a gritty, graffiti-strewn
background and displayed in tones that Davidson describes as “an iridescence like that I had seen
in photographs of deep-sea fish”.

✷ My Top Ten Favorite Psychedelic Folk Songs
by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
This is a treat, especially as I was raised on some of this stuff!
Definitely worth digging up, as these songs provide an excellent
soundtrack to paisley-wearing psilocybe picnics on the moors.

✷ One of the things on my “must do in this lifetime” list is see the aurora borealis.
In the meantime, these might tide me over:
Breathtaking photos of the aurora borealis by Jónína Óskarsdóttir
(Many thanks to Maria Popova at the ever-awesome Brainpickings for this!)

Tsariwa Mama (The Mother of the Tree) – 2009
30 in. x 40 in. – Oil and egg tempera on panel

✷ My dear friend Madeline von Foerster has a new show up:

RELIQUARIES
Nov. 12 – Dec. 18
Vernissage: Nov. 12, 7pm
Strychnin Gallery
Boxhagenerstrasse 36, 10245 Berlin

There’s a great piece on her work from Coilhouse here: Madeline von Foerster’s Reliquaries

“This new series of artworks grows out of the artist’s fascination with reliquaries:
the jewel-covered statues and treasure chests where remains of sainted persons —
from bones, to scraps of clothing, to vials of blood — are enshrined. Old, beautiful,
and mysterious, reliquaries often become objects of worship themselves. The impulse
to preserve and make precious seems to represent a common human urge, spanning
across many cultures, and not only confined to religion: we create reliquaries for vanquished
cultures in our Natural History Museums, and living reliquaries, in the form of zoos,
for animals all but extinct in the wild.

Whereas a reliquary represents the end of a worshipper’s pilgrimage, von Foerster’s works are
an entryway to contemplation, rather than its terminus, and provoke questions rather than provide
answers. Do we value things more in these contained and decorated settings than in their natural state?
Why do we make such efforts to preserve what is gone, instead of living with respect for what is robust?
Can we venerate the living as well as the dead, the natural rather than the supernatural?”

She is beyond amazing, so if you’re anywhere near Berlin, please go see her work
(so that I can be terribly envious! Oh, if only I could!) Seeing these pieces in person is
a revelation. She has incredible skill, and is also one of the sweetest ladies in the world.

I wasn’t able to figure out the source and artist for this lovely scratched face girly, or for yonder
fancy bird-head, or for the nice mineral collection (I think it’s from a textbook.) Got any leads for me?

Oh yes, and p.s. – I’ve been nominated in two categories for The Austin Blogger Awards!
I’ve never been bothered about having or wanting any kind of award or notoriety for what
I do here, but you know what? I’ve been at it a long time, and I love it immensely, and it
seems that some of you love it too. If that’s true, then I’d be most grateful for your support!
It would tickle me pink to have some recognition for ye olde Gazette! If you have a minute,
please vote for me for Blogger of The Year and/or Best Art/Design Blog – and thank you!
Also, check out all the other rad writers nominated – I am proud to be included in such good
company! My girl Amelia of Vintage Vivant is nominated for best Style Blog, and if you
haven’t yet seen her vintage finery and naughty embroidery, go take a peek –
you’ll agree that she definitely deserves to win! Oh, and – the deadline for this stage
of voting is 5pm, on December 3rd!
Votey-vote-vote please & thanky-danke-gracias-merci!

Jack Mord from The Thanatos Archive found this gem in a box of photos
he picked up at a garage sale. Best score ever? It’s pretty amazing.

✷ NOW THIS IS GOTHIC
This is the best tumblr ever made. It has magic powers.
Makes me wanna buy a can of hairspray and go to town!

✷ This article on Witch House from Pitchfork has some nice tracks:
Ghosts in the Machine
and sort of related, is this great article from Zed Equals Zee
on bands like GL▲SS †33†H, ℑ⊇◊⊆ℜ and ///▲▲▲\\\
going intentionally under the radar with their ungoogle-able monikers:
How to disappear (almost) completely

✷ Morbid Anatomy
Is another one of my favorite sources for the macabre and marvelous,
run by the lovely Joanna Ebenstein, your go-to girl if you want to know
more about death, burial, murder, memento mori et cetera! Hooray!

✷ Omar Doom’s Halloween Mix 2010 is making me pretty happy.

✷ Human Hearts Found in California Cemetery
A Worker Found Half Buried Jars Containing Human Hearts with Photos Attached

✷ Package with cow tongue puts kink in morning trains

✷ Sacrifice to Ogun Slows Down Austin MetroRail
Package with cow tongue puts kink in morning trains

✷ Dissolving your earthly remains will protect the Earth
Aquamation Station!

✷ It’s Calling For Me Through The Trees…
Dear Chadling at Mon Petit Fantome never ceases to delight and inspire.
I am in love with these photos here took of his fog-laden bayou backyard.
His gorgeous new silhouettes are to die for as well! He’s a demon with those scissors!

✷ Illustrations by Harry Clarke for a 1925 edition of Goethe’s Faust
from A Journey Round My Skull
and his brilliant illustrations for
Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination
(via John Coulthart, with thanks)

✷ Dance, Witch. – from the Pineal Eye
“Mary Wigman’s 1914 Hexentanz (Witch Dance) might rival The Exoricist’s
spider walk scene in terms of creepiness, but the German Expressionist dancer
is usually cited for influencing creatures like Murnau’s Count Orlok in Nosferatu.”

✷ Where Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops
Organza and taffeta and tulle, oh my!
Photographer Tim Walker takes haute couture
(and more) to a wonderfully wicked place.
I want to live in this fashion spread forever.

✷ The Ghost – By Elizabeth Gilbert
This article is ten years old, but totally worth revisiting. I have a weird connection
with Hank Williams, and Hank III because of that, but I won’t go into it just now.

✷ I adore After Dark In The Playing Fields, a fantastic blog from
On The Borderland & Ghoul Next Door.
Here are some goodies I’ve enjoyed from them lately:

Shrieks From Above and Other Improbable Difficulties.

Beautiful and curious gravestone iconography:
All Must Submit to the King of Terrors, But That Is No Reason to Look So Grave
Part I.
Part II.

Ghoul Next Door’s A Chilling Chosen Few:
12 Cinematic favourites for Haunting Halloween viewing

✷ Liane from Enhabiten wrote about black bouses, a while back –
the comments about Duane the Dentist’s black houses in Olympia are pretty funny,
if taken with several grains of salt. A bunch of my friends have lived in those black
houses. I think it’s a great project. Unfortunately painting your house black in our
southern climate is pretty untenable. Maybe the interior walls instead?

✷ Miss Anna Dorfman aka. Doorsixteen
makes black walls with black trim awfully enticing.

The Watcher in the Woods! Holy moly. I watched this recently, thinking I had
never seen it – but I realized halfway through that actually I saw part of it when
I was little, and it totally haunted me for years. The scene in the funhouse made
it all come back to me, and the pungent memory I’ve carried for so long of the
ruined abbey, the mysterious wind, the calling ghost. The alternative ending
is completely out of control, also – do watch it! Your mind will be destroyed.

✶ My new favorite blog: Art Inconnu – what a wonderful source of inspiration! There is so much here
that I’ve never seen before, and my eyes just drink it in. It’s crazy how much brilliant work just falls by the wayside.
“Collected here are works by artists who are forgotten, under appreciated, or little known to the mainstream.
There is incredible quality to be found out there beyond the big name artists in the big shows, whether it is
one exceptional painting, one area of an artists oeuvre, or an entire career worth re-examining. The focus
here is primarily painting by 19th and 20th century artists but everything is fair game.”

✶ On that note, here’s a fabulous archive of Magic Lantern slides,
one of the many things I try not to collect, but cannot help acquiring.

✶ R.I.P. Ari Up! (17 January 1962 – 20 October 2010)
From Coilhouse – Ari Up (Goodbye, True Warrior)

✶ These etsy treasury lists curated by Miss BloodMilk are to die for!
So, so many good treats there! I want every bit of it.

✶ If I weren’t already planning to be in New Orleans for Day of The Dead and Halloween,
I’d be going to RECSPEC’s killer Lost Boys themed party: Get Lost.
I’d dress as Star and Sax Man’s bastard love-child maybe, and bring chinese take-out.

✶ Processed Meats Declared Too Dangerous for Human Consumption
I have to say that I really adore bacon, salami and yes – hot dogs! I am usually really careful about
always getting nitrite and nitrate free versions of those, but after reading this, I am even more freaked
by the idea of processed meat products. We’ve been eating mostly bison from Thunder Heart Bison,
whose motto is: Texas Grass-Fed – Raised With Respect. They are the only bison ranch in the United
States to meet the stringent requirements of the Animal Welfare Institute. They are wonderful.

✶ Fish: the forgotten victims on our plate
“There is no humane slaughter requirement for the staggering number of wild fish caught and killed at sea”
Both of these articles are very sad and sobering, because while I really love eating animal and fish protein,
(my body really loves it too) I know how horrible the industries are for the earth. Heartbreaking.

✶ Red Light Properties, by Dan Goldman is “a tropical-horror series about a Miami-based realty office
specializing in placing foreclosure victims into “previously-haunted homes”, and it is thoroughly enjoyable
and absorbing. Thanks to Tor, you can read it all online!

✶ Louise Brooks’ private journals to be revealed
I cannot wait for this! Louise was such an incredibly intelligent woman,
and a fantastic writer. I’ve read her autobiography, and several biographies,
and highly recommend delving into her fascinating world to anyone who loves
flappers, dancers, and sad, strong, sexy women. She is the ultimate icon.

✶ Yes, so I succumbed a little while ago to finally watching Mad Men, and of
course I’m now totally hooked. I love the writing, the characters, the details.
They really get it right. I’m tearing through the third season now, and then
what will I do? This great piece is quite a bit ahead of me, but makes me
very curious to see what’s ahead for Miss B. Yes, television sucks, and
I’m still glad that I don’t have one (I’m patient!), but if it gets people really
talking, and writing, and thinking – well, I’m glad. I think the period dramas
are especially good, both for my anachronistic tendencies, and because
they illustrate events and aspects of our history that many might otherwise overlook.
Yep. Also it gives my mind something to do while I stick tiny labels onto obscure objects.
No-One’s Ever On Your Side: Betty Draper Francis Still Needs Your Love

✶ Sometimes, I have to stop and just goggle in wonder at how
amazing Kate Bush is. I remember in middle school my friend
Colleen made me a mix tape of her favorite Kate Bush songs,
and it kind of changed my life. She could also do a really rad
impression of Running Up That Hill that I always tried to get
her to do on the bus. Where are you, Colleen? I hope you’re well!

I’ve pulled down my lace and the chintz.
Oh, do you know you have the face of a genius?
I’ll send your love to Zeus.
Oh, by the time you read this,
I’ll be well in touch.

The song is based on an old folk song called “The Ballad Of Lizzie Wan”:
“The heroine is pregnant with her brother’s child. Her brother murders her.
He tries to pass off the blood as some animal he had killed — his grayhound,
his falcon, his horse — but in the end must admit that he murdered her.
He sets sail in a ship, never to return.”

Two of my favorite things (Kate’s Never Be Mine and Malick’s Days of Heaven)
put together to great effect. If you’ve never seen Days of Heaven, you must. I adore
Terrence Malick, and this film is just so gorgeous. Also, Linda Manz (the mom from
Gummo!) is in it as a young girl, and she’s amazing. Hop to it, kittens!