The Sound of Memphis

Forgot to post this earlier in the year...

Bald Bear

This bear at a German zoo has lost its hair for reasons unknown. Strange and sad to see a hairless bear.

Roland Topor

Roland Topor's career often intersected with many of my favorite touchstones. He was a cofounder of the Panic Movement with Fernando Arrabal and Alejandro Jodorowski. Created the drawings for the great Czech animated film Fantastic Planet. Wrote the eerie novel The Tenant, basis of Polanski's film. Played Renfield in Herzog's Nosferatu. Provided the illustrations for Fluxus artist Daniel Spoerri's book An Anecdoted Topography of Chance. Following are the opening credits to Arrabal's Viva La Muerte with drawings by Topor.

It's OK

Waitin' Around to Die

Townes Van Zandt performs "Waitin' Around to Die" in the documentary Heartworn Highways.

Another Random Photo Dump

Children Who Smoke

John Waters has a new exhibit at Gagosian Gallery. Looks really cool.

Cigarette in Your Bed

Going to see My Bloody Valentine on Monday. Here's someone's cool collage to "Cigarette in Your Bed."

Charlie White

Minazo

The late Minazo, giant elephant seal of Japan.

Acid Mothers Temple

This one is rather long, but it's hard to express Acid Mothers Temple in short form. They were fantastic last night at the Sunset Tavern.

I'm So Alone

Johnny Thunders - I'm So Alone.

"Carribean Pirates"

It looks to me like Paul McCarthy is taking the piss out of Matthew Barney (top, a well-known self-portrait) with this image from "Carribean Pirates," an exhibit with his son Damon McCarthy.

Human Fly

Human Fly, the Cramps, remixed by 2 Many DJs.

Eefin'

The WFMU blog has a great post on the hillbilly practice known as "eefin'." Highly recommended.

Avoid Electrocution

Here's some tips to avoid electrocution.

Women In Revolt

Women In Revolt, Paul Morrissey.

Wise Blood

Artwork on Criterion's forthcoming DVD of the John Huston adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood pays homage to the old Penguin paperbacks:



Ministry sampled some bits of this movie for Jesus Built My Hot Rod. "Nobody with a good car needs to be justified."

Speaking of Flannery O'Connor, some positive reviews are coming in for the new biography by Brad Gooch. In her review of that book, Joy Williams in the New York Times relates this anecdote:

The first, perhaps, and last, perhaps, kiss she received from a man was in 1954. The man was Erik Langkjaer, a young and handsome college textbook salesman who described the event thusly: “As our lips touched, I had a feeling that her mouth lacked resilience, as if she had no muscle tension in her mouth, a result being that my own lips touched her teeth rather than lips, and this gave me an unhappy feeling of a sort of memento mori, and so the kissing stopped. . . . I had a feeling of kissing a skeleton, and in that sense it was a shocking experience.”

Yikes! A few bands have paid O'Connor tribute in song, my favorite being Killdozer, whose song "Lupus" opens with the couplet "Lupus took the life of Flannery O'Connor/ She wrote many books before death came upon her."

Day Is Done trailer

Microcinema International distributor has created a trailer for Mike Kelley's Day Is Done. Here it is:

Some Wolves (and a tiger and a deer).

Unknown, Cai Guo-Qiang, Joseph Beuys, Taryn Simon, Mircea Cantor.

Steve McQueen

Hunger, the 2008 film by the British artist Steve McQueen, should be available on dvd this month. It created a stir at Cannes because of an intense 17-minute shot in which a priest debates an Irish prison hunger-striker. This is the first feature film from an artist known for museum projections inspired by Buster Keaton, Jean Vigo, and Andy Warhol's Couch. I am anxious to see it.

Random vintage photos

Trolling the web for random weird old photos:

R.I.P. Lux Interior

Ryan Trecartin

Just watched I-Be Area by Ryan Trecartin. Clips can be had via Youtube, but really it's best to see the whole thing beginning to end, available here.

Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler

More.