Gonzo!

It’s not really a secret that I am a big fan of Hunter S. Thompson, especially the earlier stuff, roughly up to Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72. The later stuff…well, it’s okay, but after that he was…how should I put this…past his prime. However, I really enjoyed reading the three volumes of letters that have been published over the last few years and only a few days ago I finally got around to watch GONZO: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson, which I can highly recommend. It has a ton of original footage, interviews with Ralph Steadman, HST’s ex-wifes, and other fellow travelers. And if you can stand Johnny Depp reading some HST while waving a six-shooter around (I wonder whose idea that was…) – more power to you.

Posted via web from Bearded Dave

Filed under: Art and Stuff, Books, Documentary , 1970s, Documentary, Hunter S. Thompson, journalism, writing

A Conversation with Alan Moore about the Arts and the Occult

If you are even remotely interested in comics or magic, this interview with Alan Moore will make you very happy.

Posted via web from Bearded Dave

UPDATE: Apologies for the short post. I was so exited yesterday that I came across this that I went ahead and posted it via posterous (a recent favorite of mine), but didn’t have the time to really write something more than what you see above. I have been quite a fan of Alan Moores’s work, even though only semi-consciously. I didn’t really look for his work, but somehow it always found me. Only recently I have started to learn more about him and he is an interesting character. His view on magic rings very true to me and brings back memories from, what, 10 years ago when I was much more immersed in that stuff.

What can I say – it’s good to be back! Oh, and it’s a good interview, very worth reading. Trust me.

Filed under: Art and Stuff, Books, News & Culture Flash , Alan Moore, interview, magic

Today it’s all about death death death

It’s a blistering 75ºF outside and today we talk about death. Isn’t it funny sometimes how all of a sudden one topic comes to the forefront of your day? The first thing I found was this blog that had been started in conjuction with an exhibition of the Justice and Police Department Archives and the Historic Houses Trust. Sadly, it’s not very well maintained, but there are some haunting, surreal vintage crime scene photos on it {NSFW & not for the squeamish). You could take one picture and write an entire book about what happened.

The really amazing thing, however, are the vintage mugshots. They are intense! There are some more pictures and background info on TrAcEy’s blog. Apparently, those mugshots were taken by the New South Wales Police Department photographers between 1910 and 1930. There are approximately 2500 of them and you can see a handful of them on the Historic Houses Trust’s searchable website. What strikes me about those portraits is how sharp and clear they are.

To round this up, we have Slate reviewing a book called Dissection, which is essentially a collection of, well, vintage photographs from the dissection room. Here’s a snip from the review:

This lost genre of photographs, Edmonson explains, dates roughly from 1880 to 1930. The images, which were taken at medical schools across the country, generally display groups of student dissectors posing with their cadavers. At times, the students—who are mostly male but occasionally female—are actively dissecting. Not surprisingly, many of the cadavers look less like human beings than pieces of meat. But in other images, especially those involving the skeletons that students used to help identify the bones and other landmarks in their cadavers, the dead are in unnatural positions, either by themselves or with students. A cadaver smokes a pipe; skeletons play cards; skeletons hug their dissectors; skeletons are even propped up to appear as though they are dissecting sleeping students.

Posted via web from Bearded Dave

UPDATE: Jessica Palmer wrote a great post on this topic on :bioephemera:, which is a blog I can only highly recommend for all you science aficionados out there. Great writing on art, anatomy, and science.

Filed under: Bizarre-O-Rama, Books, Documentary, History, Photography, Vintage Stuff , book, crime, death, dissection, intense, mugshots, Photography, vintage

Hangin’ at the Mall

Man, what a bummer. Looking for a job sucks and when it turns out that one job that you actually want doesn’t work out, well, that’s a pretty big bummer. So we decided to go to the mall yesterday to pick up some craftsy stuff and spend 1 1/2 hours in the bus to get there just to barely avoid getting run over by the CT drivers. In my opinion, the strip mall, and the 24-hour-news cycle, are among the worst things in the USA (there are a ton of other things, of course). The entire design of the mall with it’s lack of sidewalks, lack of crosswalks, is a sad sad excuse for a town center. Who thought this would be an awesome idea, again?

There is a ton of writing on malls, which is actually pretty interesting. The first time I read something about it was in Joan Didion’s We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order to Live, a collection of her non-fiction writing that I can highly recommend! The article is called “On the Mall” and was published in The White Album.  And I think The New Yorker carried at least one lengthy article on shopping malls in America.

So when we go the the mall it usually involves having a late lunch (because the bus ride essentially ate up lunch time) in the Food Court, which is apparently a well liked hang-out for every teenager who lives in a 25-mile-radius (this is America, after all). Isn’t that sad? I’m not sure whether the town or city center is something especially European, but come on, even if it was it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to have it here too, eh? Not everything the Olde Worlde invented is bad, right?

Filed under: Books, Grumpy German, History , article, Joan Didion, mall, non-fiction, writing

Oh, yeah?!

Snow again? What the fuck?!?! I’m just glad that I don’t have to run any long errands today – wait, actually, I have to. Great. So it’s the snow shoes again and 15 layers of clothing. Even the island sounds of Don Tiki don’t help here. What is called for is some good old NYHC! And to top things of, it’s windy and a delightful 24ºF outside.

So, anyway, I started reading another of Lee Child’s Jack-Reacher-Novels and while they are fun to read I can help but notice that they are getting a little formulaic. The first three or four novels are great, but after that they lose their initial drive. I don’t know. It’s still a good read and Reacher is in a pretty bad mood and mouths off a lot, which is pretty funny.

Over and out – into the snow.

Filed under: Books , Books, crime, Jack Reacher, Lee Child, weather