Soul Sister

This is Natacha Atlas (born March 20, 1964), according to Wikipedia, she is a "Belgian singer known for her fusion of Arabic and North African music with Western electronic music". Great singer. I've found her via KCRW. And you know what? She was born on the same day as me! Squarely lovely, isn't?

Uluru

Future Nights

Joyce Carol Oates has put out her last book, Wild Nights!: Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway. I guess she wish she were Dickinson, inasmuch her impersonation in the picture above. One of the short stories is "EDickinsonRepliLuxe," a tale of a suburban couple that purchases a Dickinson android. Maybe this incursion into sci-fi has as precedent the collection of ten stories by Lovecraft compiled by her. The title of the new book refers to the following inspired Dickinson's verses:

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile – the winds –
To a heart in port –
Done with the compass –
Done with the chart!

Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the sea!
Might I moor – Tonight –
In thee!

Getting Older

Is Ernest Borgnine the new Old Parr? Simply put: is Viagra the new phosphorous and balls of mercury?

My Heroes

Today, the climbing to artistry celebrity is an “anything goes” process. Poor devils, fuckheads and losers of all types would cut one of their fingers to get a spotlight, to be publicized somehow, to appear in the social columns, to attain a dubious and frivolous title (as “curator”). It is the sickness of the modern era, a pathological aspect of human behavior. That’s exactly why characters as Ferdinand Waldo Demara, Jr and B. Traven should be praised and admired. The former, immortalized by Toni Curtis in the film The Great Impostor (1961), was a man who had a penchant to be specialist without being specialized in anything, becoming a marine, a monk, a surgeon onboard a Canadian Warship, and a prison warden. The last was a mysterious writer who never revealed his true identity, and was supposed to be Jack London, Ambrose Bierce, an American millionaire, a Black American ex-slave, Frans Blom, a leper, Mexican President Adolfo Lopez Mateos, the President’s sister (Esperanza), August Ribelje, Jacob Torice, Mexican President Elias Calles, a chief editor of a German Publisher, Cap'n Bilbo, Arthur Breisky, a group of writers in Honduras and a group of leftist Hollywood scriptwriters. Authentic anarchists types that are scarce in the wasteland we call academy and art world.

Latin Tiki Trick

Dr. Sam Tee, a lost variety of cocktail container typical of Tiki culture, appears in the last Señor Coconut video clip, a cover of “Da Da Da” (right). In the menu of the Hawaiian Village, Tampa, Florida (left), one can read its naive description: Those oriental doctors know something. This drink is prescribed for the timid, the daring, the young in heart. A tropical adventure with delectable rums (Tiki Modern, Sven A. Kirsten, Taschen).

A Scanner Darkly

Nazi stamp found on the cover of Danicorum monumentorum (via the excellent BibliOdyssey), by Ole Worm (1643). Light and darkness interlaced. Calls for that famous phrase in Corinthians 13, now reworked by Joyce: In reply to a question as to his first sensations in the great divide beyond he stated that previously he had seen as in a glass darkly but that those who had passed over had summit possibilities of atmic development opened up to them.

For Your Eyes Only

A good soul has scanned several issues of Serai, a stunning premium magazine about Japanese art and culture (fine gastronomy very nicely included!). You don’t know how to read in that language? Well, if blind children learn the verb 'see', then you can learn the expression "eat with the eyes".

The Buckwheat and the Sword

For years I’ve been looking for the right name of those traditional Japanese symbols that clans had commissioned for heraldic purposes. Serendipity has worked today in the pages of March edition of Monocle magazine: the famous brewery Kirin is now mass-marketing their shochu brand Tarucho, packaged in rectangular coated paper boxes covered by illustrations of key ingredients in the form of kamon. I don’t remember where I’ve seen those symbols… I guess in some samurai movie?

Seyrig-“A” For Ever!

Will Delphine Seyrig ever become old? I don’t think so. Photogenic rejuvenation through cinema, would say Musil… And, yes, Last Year at Marienbad was based upon The Invention of Morel and “A” is Faustine (rather than Louise Brooks!). Seyrig-“A” is a virtual being roaming eternally the platonic meadows of my mind.

Connecting Calligraphies

Nary has a case of connectionism gone unnoticed by me, with no exceptions. I’ve learned recently the word Umwelt and it inspired me to do a drawing using Documenta font Schild. Today, running my eyes over a big archive of photos of D12, I’ve bumped into a piece done by Mira Schendel, a Brazilian artist known for employing eccentric typography in her work. Coincidence? Or another case of authorless ideas?
UPDATE (3/02): More images of "Umwelt und Mondo" here and here.

Another Plug

Last night I woke up with the city sounds, but they were not at all poetic: it sounded as if Brobdingnagian king was mixing home made tractors inside a gigantic shaker. If today the butt plugs are so popular to the point of have been quoted in TV series (Californication), I’d like to begin a campaign to hype another plug: the earplug.