Where oh where do I begin with this one?! It’s totally out-there, folks. I’m still a little shocked by what I just watched. Oh my!
Oh rats! Manhattan woman’s pets are rodents that the whole city hates
(via TDW)
The eccentric English mage, poet, painter and gourmet rice chef would be 135-years-old today if, um, he could like live forever or something…
I’m often asked “Where is a good place to start reading Crowley?” and this is a difficult question because you have to read, pretty much, all of it to make sense of any of it. Going down the Crowley rabbit hole is comparable, I think, to being a scholar of James Joyce (or Ezra Pound) because achieving a proper understanding of the subject takes years, decades even (and then what are you going to DO with all that knowledge, anyway?). But one source that I will point curious folk to is the late Tim Maroney’s excellent “Introduction to Crowley (in Five Voices)” which I published in my Book of Lies anthology in 2004.
Below, Kenneth Anger’s short film documenting several of Crowley’s paintings, “The Man We Want to Hang.”
Update: Today is also Kirk Cameron’s birthday. Is it a mere coincidence that the Darwin-denying, Left Behind actor shares a birthday with the Great Beast???
There is no schadenfreude quite like Republican schadenfreude, especially when there is a male prostitute, hooker or “Nazi hobby” in the mix (note CNN’s lower third text in the video. Superb!). Far be from me to stick up for the sole Jewish Republican in the House—I think Eric Cantor is a complete idiot—WHAT did Rich Iott, the Republican Congressional candidate from Ohio’s 9th District, EXPECT would happen once this particular GOOSE-STEPPING SKELETON fell out of his closest?
This guy is the best candidate the Ohio Republicans could come up with in this entire district??? Apparently so!
Via TPM
During a screening of Jean Rollin’s first horror movie, La Viol du Vampire (aka Queen of the Vampires) in Paris 1968, police stormed the cinema and a riot erupted between the audience and the gendarmerie. The event made Rollin and his film famous, and started a career in fantasy, horror and sexploitation movie-making that has continued for over forty years.
Rollin began his career as an editor, and hung out with Nouvelle Vague film-makers such as Jean-Luc Goddard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Alain Resnais and Eric Rohmer.
I met most of them at Henri Langlois’ Cinemateque Francaise; we talked, and I saw their films. It was not exactly my cup of tea. It was a movement similar to German New Wave filmmaking, some sort of rebellion against the old directors—not only their approach and vision, but also their technical style. I was always most attracted to traditional, old French cinema, but there is no doubt that the Nouvelle Vague played an important economic role. They proved it was possible for young people without experience to make successful, acclaimed films on a small budget. They gave me and others the courage to attempt the same feat.
However, Rollin had his own vision of the cinema he wanted to make, and it wasn’t long until he tried his hand as a director. As a member of France’s Left, Rollin was asked to make a documentary in support of the Spanish resistance against the fascist leader, General Franco. The experience and the success of the film encouraged Rollin to make his first feature, the fantasy horror La Viol du Vampire.
In general, the fantastic cinema is always political, because it is always in the opposition. It is subversive and it is popular, which means it is dangerous. I made films with sex and violence at a time when censorship was very strong, so that was certainly a political statement as well, although again, not a conscious one. I just happen to have an imagination which doesn’t correspond with those of certain conservative people.
Over the next decade, Rollin made thirty-two films, mainly horror-fantasy, including Le Frisson des Vampires (aka The Shiver of the Vampires), Requiem for a Vampire, Les Démoniaques and Lévres de Sang (aka Lips of Blood). To help supplement the budgets for his own film projects, Rollin made a series of sexploitation films (usually under the name Michel Gentil), the first of which, Schoolgirl Hitch-hikers has just been digitally remastered and is about to be released for the first time on DVD, to coincide with Rollin’s birthday, by Nigel Wingrove’s Salvation Films.
Now in his seventies, Rollin continues to work and his latest fantasy horror flick, The Mask of Medusa was released in France last month.
The Mind Benders: LSD and Hallucinogens. Good production values give this drug scare film from 1967 the sheen of respectability, but it’s still full of the same old bullshit. At a time when kids needed a Psychedelics For Dummies instructional manual, we got the kind of spooky propaganda that caused more bummers than strychnine-laced STP.
Today is National Coming Out Day, so here is an appropriate music video to help get the party started right, Diana Ross performing. what else, “I’m Coming Out” at the Inglewood Auditorium in 1981. Congratulations to everyone who had the courage to come out to their friends and family today, it probably wasn’t easy, but it’s going to get better.
Via Shakesville
I love me some surly Lou Reed. The interviewer is WBCN’s Bill Boggs.
Watch and discuss among yourselves.
Is Africa bigger than the combined size of America and China?
This is the kind of question that pops up in local radio ‘phone-in quizzes, leaving irate callers purple-faced arguing the toss, until bluntly presented with the facts.
Well, here it is. Hard to believe, yes, but apparently true. For according to this map the African continent is far bigger than we think, as it can contain the area of the United States of America, China, India, Japan and still have room for Europe.
Don’t believe it? Well, let’s do the maths.
The total land area of China, USA, India, Mexico, Peru, France, Spain, Papua New Guinea, Sweden, Japan, Germany, Norway, Italy, New Zealand, UK, Nepal, Bangladesh and Greece is 30.102 (x1000km2)
Africa is 30.221 (x1000km2)
When it comes to Africa, this map shows why understanding scale is important.
Via Ken Cargill
Two of the most exciting live performances by a rock band that I’ve seen were Killing Joke at New York’s Peppermint Lounge and Limelight in the 80s. Intense, powerful, transcendent, Killing Joke’s influence has been long and deep. Underrated but much loved by their fans, KJ are gods among men.
Here’s a fan-made video interview with Killing Joke’s lead singer and high priest Jaz Coleman. Plus, a live performance by Killing Joke in Munich, 1985.
Parts 2 and 3 of the interview and live performance video after the jump…
