The Psychedelic Furs recorded this strangely mesmerizing live version of Love My Way at Perkins Palace in Pasadena, US in 1983, for a tv music programme. It has a slower tempo than the album version from Forever Now (1982), yet the timing is very even and Richard Butler is pitch perfect....
Animated by Yuri Norstein and drawn by Lyudmila Petrushevskaia, Skazka Skazok remains one of the most beautiful and intriguing animated films ever made....
Today I discovered the work of Miyu Kojima, a Japanese artist who makes beautifully detailed miniature dioramas of rooms in which people have died lonely deaths, a phenomenon called kodokushi....
"Italo Calvino had a great cultural influence on many artists inspired by his work. From Diomira to Berenice, here are depictions of the Italian writer's imaginary cities."
The original appeared on the 1972 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. The 1990 tour was the last time Bowie performed this song, and it has a poignant energy. See also the live performance in 1973, where Bowie announced this was the last song they would ever do (retiring the Ziggy character)....
In my long experience working with artists across all media, one of the things that I've found the most rewarding is discovering their inspirations, which often lead to new creative ideas of my own....
Alice (Neco z Alensky) was Czech surrealist animator Jan Švankmajer's first full-length feature film, and combines stop-motion animation with live action. In some ways it's a very loose adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland but in another sense it's very faithful, as it allows us to experience anew the initial...
@Arotrios seems to be on a break, so for the time being, "I am Torgo - I take care of the place while the Master is away". Widely regarded as a strong contender for the worst feature film of all time, Manos: The Hands of Fate is a film about a family who take a wrong turn and end up in the sinister domain of the Master, his...
"Though we haven’t even spoken, still I sense there’s a rapport"... Now that @Arotrios has opened the door for Mr Sandman to enter, with the exuberant 'Bueno', here's something for a little later in the evening... you walked a few blocks through the pouring rain to get here tonight because you heard that there would be a...
One remarkable ancient artefact, a Babylonian world map from the Sixth Century BCE, marks the beginning of this obsession. The map, inscribed on a clay tablet, shows how ancient people imagined the quadrants of the earth: it describes lands of serpents, dragons, and scorpion-men, the far northern regions “where the sun is...
The world is full of museums that don’t exist fully in three dimensions – museums described in words or drawn on paper; museum catalogues; museums on the web. There are also many museums that are the creation of artists, novelists and poets, and so have a strong thread of imagination running through them. The latter cast an...
Seeing as all the other gods get to tell their stories on the @13thFloor, here's the Adventures of Me, as told
by Sam Snake, Chief Elijah Yellowhead, Alder York, David Simcoe and Annie King
Strong cast today - TL;DR: Today is a good day to do good.
Here's our breakdown:
Present: 10S
Challenge: Priestess Reversed
Past: Queen of Swords Reversed
Future: Page of Cups
Above:6S
Below: Knight of Coins
Advice: Devil Reversed
External Influences: Knight of Wands
Hopes and Fears: 2W Reversed
Outcome: Strength
Starting with the 10 of swords, that's a card of the final triumph of battle, as well as it's cost. It's challenged by a reversed Priestess, rejecting spirit in favor of conspiracies and manipulation. In the past, the Queen of Swords (remember her from yesterday?) is still drunken and reversed, but the Page of Cups is upright, and leading us into a future of new loves and infatuations.
Above, the six of swords looks towards the recovery from battle, helping the wounded, and looking towards a new view of the world. Below, the Knight of Pentacles and Coins is saving for a rainy day, building basis of new inventions (the two cards can be very positive together, especially for those you help).
To make things weird, however, the Devil is drunk, upside down, and sitting in the Advice spot. I'm gonna let readers interpret that as they may, but in my view this is advice about how to deal with the Devil rather than a suggestion that we listen to him whilst intoxicated.
External influences show the Knight of Wands leading the viewer to become a catalyst of change, joining the positive forces of the 6 of swords and Knight of Coins. Hopes and fears are the 2 of wands reversed, indicating worry about misleading folks in a rush to complete your goals.
But should you persevere, you end up with Strength, upright and powerful, as the Outcome. As I said above, this is a good day to do good.
I love this song, Bowie's cover version especially. Just stumbled on a really in-depth write-up of the David Bowie/Scott Walker relationship around Nite Flights on Pushing Ahead Of The Dame ....
Sunfire roses
cascading vines
waterfall whispers
a garden of mind
A symphony silent
and sparkling with life
lingering among echoes
of wonder and strife
An electric engine
in a neuronic embrace
the neurotic erotic
in this necrotic space
using rhyme
to shape time
into heartbeats
sublime
drifting on fantasy and brandywine
As summertime falls
into autumn piles
spinning blue moons buckwild
with harvest bliss
and a homecoming kiss
I can see them rising
over the fae falls
and the ash forest
beyond the Tilting Rock
calling the mist up from the scorched land
and charred memoir
caressing the burn scars
with moonbeam teardrops
Does Dionysus still dance in the hills?
Do the Sasquatch still run free?
Do the fae still parade their thistle blades beneath the oaken leaves?
They do for me
Even in silent soliloquy
the unseelie cacophony
Sparkles bright against the entropy
of cubicles and clenched teeth
fluorescent lights and too much bleach
the smell of the sterilization of imaginative belief
So I keep old Bacchus waltzing
make sure the squatches are well fed
belt out the blues for the little folk
and let them party in my head
'cause if I don't
the part of me
that wants to breathe
is already dead.
Words with me,
but imagine they
have other lives,
other families, their
own raison d'être.
In battle they’d carve
each other mid
syllable. In groups
they’d snub and snoot,
replete with synonym antics,
but today they assemble
making poems
intertwining
soulmates.
Can't help quoting the "hmmm!" from this piece today. This is a track off Gil Scott Heron's first album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (though, it was actually recorded in an Atlantic Records studio with a small live audience)....
Psychedelic Furs - Love My Way (Live, Pasadena 1983) (m.youtube.com)
The Psychedelic Furs recorded this strangely mesmerizing live version of Love My Way at Perkins Palace in Pasadena, US in 1983, for a tv music programme. It has a slower tempo than the album version from Forever Now (1982), yet the timing is very even and Richard Butler is pitch perfect....
The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (As Beauty) - David Bowie, live 1996 (m.youtube.com)
Outside is a David Bowie concept album written with Brian Eno....
Skazka Skazok /The Tale of Tales (dir. Yuri Norstein, 1979) [29 minutes, English subtitles] (m.youtube.com)
Animated by Yuri Norstein and drawn by Lyudmila Petrushevskaia, Skazka Skazok remains one of the most beautiful and intriguing animated films ever made....
Art: Miyu Kojima Creates Miniature Replicas of Lonely Deaths (www.spoon-tamago.com)
Today I discovered the work of Miyu Kojima, a Japanese artist who makes beautifully detailed miniature dioramas of rooms in which people have died lonely deaths, a phenomenon called kodokushi....
Invisible Cities: Art Inspired by the Great Writer Italo Calvino (www.thecollector.com)
"Italo Calvino had a great cultural influence on many artists inspired by his work. From Diomira to Berenice, here are depictions of the Italian writer's imaginary cities."
Rock n Roll Suicide - David Bowie, 1990 (live in Tokyo) (m.youtube.com)
The original appeared on the 1972 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. The 1990 tour was the last time Bowie performed this song, and it has a poignant energy. See also the live performance in 1973, where Bowie announced this was the last song they would ever do (retiring the Ziggy character)....
The American Motel - James Lileks (lileks.com)
Time for a road trip......
What inspires you to be creative?
In my long experience working with artists across all media, one of the things that I've found the most rewarding is discovering their inspirations, which often lead to new creative ideas of my own....
Alice (Jan Švankmajer, 1988). Original Czech language version with English subtitles, remastered (m.youtube.com)
Alice (Neco z Alensky) was Czech surrealist animator Jan Švankmajer's first full-length feature film, and combines stop-motion animation with live action. In some ways it's a very loose adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland but in another sense it's very faithful, as it allows us to experience anew the initial...
Manos: The Hands of Fate (Harold Warren, 1966) (m.youtube.com)
@Arotrios seems to be on a break, so for the time being, "I am Torgo - I take care of the place while the Master is away". Widely regarded as a strong contender for the worst feature film of all time, Manos: The Hands of Fate is a film about a family who take a wrong turn and end up in the sinister domain of the Master, his...
Morphine - Whisper - (live in Europe 1 studio, c1995) (m.youtube.com)
"Though we haven’t even spoken, still I sense there’s a rapport"... Now that @Arotrios has opened the door for Mr Sandman to enter, with the exuberant 'Bueno', here's something for a little later in the evening... you walked a few blocks through the pouring rain to get here tonight because you heard that there would be a...
Phantom Threads: Seven Ways of Looking at the Ghosts of Cinema (www.filmcomment.com)
Really thoughtful piece by Dennis Lim on the relationship between ghosts and cinema. Excerpts:...
The timeless allure of ruins (article) (www.bbc.com)
One remarkable ancient artefact, a Babylonian world map from the Sixth Century BCE, marks the beginning of this obsession. The map, inscribed on a clay tablet, shows how ancient people imagined the quadrants of the earth: it describes lands of serpents, dragons, and scorpion-men, the far northern regions “where the sun is...
Imaginary museums: What mainstream museums can learn from them? Rachel Morris. (journals.openedition.org)
The world is full of museums that don’t exist fully in three dimensions – museums described in words or drawn on paper; museum catalogues; museums on the web. There are also many museums that are the creation of artists, novelists and poets, and so have a strong thread of imagination running through them. The latter cast an...
Exile, A Lover's Discourse - Roland Barthes (1977), read by Oskar. (m.youtube.com)
From A Lover's Discourse, trans. Richard Howard (1978). Originally published as Fragments d’un discours amoureux (1977).
David Bowie - Nite Flights 1993 (Scott Walker cover) (m.youtube.com)
I love this song, Bowie's cover version especially. Just stumbled on a really in-depth write-up of the David Bowie/Scott Walker relationship around Nite Flights on Pushing Ahead Of The Dame ....
After You've Gone - Django Reinhardt with Stephane Grapelli, 1949 (m.youtube.com)
A late version, in postwar Rome. Earlier versions with Quintette du Hot Club here (includes vocal) and here....
Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue - Duke Ellington Orchestra with Paul Gonsalves solo, Newport Festival, 1956. (Assembled footage) (m.youtube.com)
I love swing... but for me it is always eternally leading up to that midsummer midnight moment in 1956 when Paul Gonsalves' tenor sax takes flight....
Gil Scott-Heron - Whitey On the Moon (Official Audio) (m.youtube.com)
Can't help quoting the "hmmm!" from this piece today. This is a track off Gil Scott Heron's first album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (though, it was actually recorded in an Atlantic Records studio with a small live audience)....
Abandon the Old in Tokyo - Yoshihiro Tatsumi (mangatoto.com)
Gritty and heartbreaking, this 1970s collection from the master of gekiga, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, was published in English in 2006....
'Twelve Cautionary Tales for Christmas: Premonitions of the Mystical Rebirth of Urbanism' by Gian Piero Frassinelli (www.readingdesign.org)
Glorious hallucinations that are reminiscent of Calvino's Invisible Cities but also of Borges. Here's an extract:...