Spotted at the Ballardian, Rick McGrath‘s great, first-person account of what went down at the recent memorial for J.G. Ballard on what would have been the “Bard of Shepperton’s?
Check out this original letter from Edgar Allan Poe apologizing for his drunken behavior in New York. No wonder he faked his own death… probably to escape bar tabs! Via Letters of Note:
Despite his fame, writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe struggled financially throughout his entire career, even following the publication of his much lauded poem, The Raven. He also enjoyed a drink or two, to a dangerously extent during later life. The following letter was written by Poe in July, 1842, and sent to his publishers along with an article he was desperately hoping they would buy. In the letter, Poe apologises for behaving badly when they last met in New York and blames the embarrassment on his friend William Ross Wallace, a fellow poet who supposedly let Poe drink too many juleps before the meeting.
The letter reads:
Gentlemen,
Enclosed I have the honor to send you an article which I should be pleased if you would accept for the ?
Great article from Climate Progress on fixing the economy with green jobs. The score’s been clear for almost 18 months: Obama’s New Deal needs to be employing the out-of-work citizenry of the United States to develop a green infrastructure for the country. With energy independence as the goal, not only would we employ the unemployed and stimulate huge economic growth, we would also have work already provided for the vets coming back from the Middle East instead of a bottle of gin and a place in the soup line. We’d also undermine the need for future energy wars.
The challenges facing President Obama and the U.S. Congress have not gone away. Paul Krugman worries that ?
Great conversation between the two people who defined punk literature in the 1980s, one of them a couple decades ahead of time.
A few weeks back, regarding Jacques Demy’s Model Shop, I wrote about my fascination with the great European directors crossing the Atlantic to reign in and make sense of ‘60s America. Resigning himself to merely making a film called Made In U.S.A., Jean-Luc Godard resisted the impulse. Michelangelo Antonioni, most spectacularly with Zabriskie Point, did not.
As hatched by a team of writers that included Sam Shepard, and wife of Bernardo Bertolucci, Clare Peploe, the plot of Zabriskie Point wasn’t terribly complex. Rebel Angelenos (my favorite kind!) Daria Halprin and Mark Frechette (who go, in the film, by their real names), hook up in the desert, have sex in the sand, then separate to meet their own explosive ends.
More complex, though, was the anger and confusion the film provoked at the time. Typically gorgeous cinematography aside, cineasts looking for a worthy philosophical successor to Blow-Up were left disappointed by Zabriskie’s relatively unnuanced take on capitalism. Hollywood watchers were appalled that Antonioni squandered so much time and money ($7 million in 1970 dollars) on something that, despite it’s notorious “desert orgy” sequence, managed to rake in barely a million hippie-box-office dollars.
Fortunately, 5 years later, Antonioni secured cinematic redemption with The Passenger. Daria Halprin acted in only a handful of films, but went on to become, briefly, Mrs. Dennis Hopper. After her marriage to Hopper fizzled, Halprin developed an interest in art therapy, and now, with her mother, runs Marin County’s Tampala Institute.
The future was far less kind to Mark Frechette. You can read the Rolling Stone article about his “sorry life and death” here, but the shorthand goes like this:
He was the apparent victim of a bizarre accident in a recreation room at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk, where Frechette had been serving a six- to 15-year sentence for his participation in a 1973 Boston bank robbery.
Frechette’s body was discovered by a fellow inmate early on the morning of September 27th pinned beneath a 150-pound set of weights, the bar resting on his throat. An autopsy revealed he had died of asphyxiation and the official explanation is that the weights slipped from his hands while he was trying to bench press them, killing him instantly.
What the above leaves out, though, is that prior to his incarceration, Frechette was living in a commune run by American cult leader Mel Lyman. The entirety of Frechette’s Zabriskie earnings were tithed to Lyman’s “Family,” and it’s presumed that whatever money Frechette hoped to abscond with post-robbery would have wound up there as well.
Before all this, though, back when television talk show guests could still indulge in a cigarette, Halprin and Frechette found themselves—along with Mel Brooks and Rex Reed—on The Dick Cavett Show.
As you can watch below, Cavett had yet to see Zabriskie Point—and Frechette makes him pay for it. In defending Lyman, Frechette also goes on to argue the fine line between “commune,” and “community.”
Trailer for Zabriskie Point: Where A Boy And A Girl Meet And Touch And Blow Their Minds!
James Lipton says, “Before you text, give it a ponder.”
Give it a Ponder: Things to Ponder Before a Text Message
(via HYST)
It gives me great pleasure to announce that Thee Psychick Bible, the complete magickal writings of Genesis P-Orridge and Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth, is now shipping. (I edited it.)
Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth, or TOPY for short, was the group responsible for popularizing body piercing and tattooing, acid house music, and magick, all aimed at personal liberation and the construction of a model of life outside of, and very opposed to, the status quo of the 1980s and beyond. They did a tremendous amount of work at shifting our culture in new and creative directions, and I am proud to be able to help showcase their work in this new, expanded edition of the book.
The group was, of course, conceived and headed by Genesis P-Orridge, the lead singer of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV; the endeavor played a crucial role in the survival and modernization of magick.
The book is hardcover, 544 pages, limited to 999 copies, and comes with a DVD of Psychic TV performances and Derek Jarman videos. (There’s also an introduction written by me.)
Thee infamous PSYCHIC BIBLE from Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth receives an updated, expanded, corrected edition,complete with dozens of new visuals and essays. The Feral House edition is handsomely presented in smyth-sewn hardcover with a red ribbon. Thee 544 pages within are printed in two colors on high-quality 60-pound stock on acid-free 100% recycled paper stock.
This signed, numbered limited edition (999 copies only) is also presented with a remarkable DVD of impossible-to-find videos from P-Orridge archives of early Psychic TV and TOPY creations which includes the work of Peter ?
Another vintage Infinity Factory show for you fine people. This late ‘90s episode features an in-depth interview with my good friend and lifelong hero, Genesis P-Orridge on the topic of the then new book, Wreckers of Civilisation: The Story of Coum Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle.
THEE PSYCHICK BIBLE: A New Testameant is Gen’s latest work, published by Feral House (and edited by Dangerous Minds own Jason Louv). It’s been produced in a high-quality, strictly limited edition of 999, signed copies, each with a 2-hour DVD of GP-O related video rarities, some directed by Derek Jarman and Peter Christopherson. Order yours here.
