By Psyche | November 24, 2009
Teitan Press has released a new book, Thorn in the Flesh: A Grim-memoire, by Rosaleen Norton.
Thorn in the Flesh is comprised poetry, Norton’s reminiscences and various occult jottings, with reproductions of two photographs of Norton, as well as examples of her art.
I’m not familiar with Norton, but Wikipedia informs me she was an Australian artist and occultist of some renown. She certainly sounds like she lead an interesting life.
Excerpt from an e-mail received from Weiser Antiquarian: Continue reading »
By Psyche | November 21, 2009
Saturday Signal: sifting the signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.
Busy times, and it’s been a while since I last posted a Saturday Signal. Indeed, the last one was on Hallowe’en, that overcommercialized wreck of an otherwise excellent holy day.
The Onion is outraged, and takes pains to reminds us that “frightenin’ away demons is the reason for the season.” Which is pretty awesome.
It recently came to my attention that Earth’s Moon may be from Mercury. It’s a wild idea, and not universally accepted, but possible. Hey, at least Pluto’s still a planet, right? Right.
- Artist and magickian Danny Chaoflux wrote an interesting though unstructured piece titled “Style Sheet Witchcraft” discussing Aleister Crowley, chaos magick, Anton LaVey, memetics and art with some great design tips.
- An Italian inventor has created a holy water dispenser to help combat the spread of swine flu, so reports the Telegraph.co.uk. Apparently this thing’s a sacred cash cow. The designer is quoted as saying: “After all the news that some churches, like Milan’s cathedral, were suspending the use of holy water fonts as a measure against swine flu, demands for my invention shot to the stars. I have received orders from all over the world.” Well, why not? Though holy hand sanitizer would likely prove more useful in the long term. Any religious market for that?
Until next week, mes amis.
By Psyche | October 17, 2009
A mummified fairy
So, Jenna, a person who is most certainly awesome, wrote about a dead fairy hoax perpetrated on April Fool’s in 2007.
She then decided to make her own dead fairy.
She then posted a “Doom It Yourself” how-to with the materials required, recommendations of where to go to acquire them, and step-by-step instructions – with pictures! – on how to achieve this.
In Jenna’s finished version pictured here, the placard is describes this creature as a “Common Wood Fairy/Oreades silvestrus/Natural mummification”.
I insist each of you make your own dead fairies and display them online. ‘Tis the season.
I love the Internet.
By Psyche | October 10, 2009
Thee Chariot, 1989
Genesis P-Orridge is a musician and artist perhaps best known for his band Psychic TV.
S/he is presently being represented by a New York gallery, Invisible Exports, which is showing a collection of hir art “30 Years of Being Cut Up” from September 9th to October 18th, select images of which can be viewed on their website.
From the press release:
In the early 1970s, P-Orridge met William S. Burroughs, who introduced h/er to Brion Gysin, marking the beginning of a seminal and influential collaborative relationship. Burroughs, under Gysin’s tutelage, repopularized the “cut-up” technique of the early 20th century Surrealists, in which text, or narrative imagery, is cut up and re-organized, creating a new, non-linear formulation. The supremely Dadaist practice would influence P-Orridge throughout h/er career and remains an integral element of h/er work, highlighted in “30 Years of Being Cut Up.” [...]
“30 Years of Being Cut Up” is a three decade retrospective of photomontage and Expanded Polaroids, which includes many works never exhibited before, as well as a sampling of P-Orridge’s early Mail Art. The show will mark the culmination of a new, re-emergent phase in BREYER P-ORRIDGE’s life. He/r career — and most particularly he/r recent pursuit of pandrogyny — tests the limits of transgression and traces the tragic fate of the underground, proving again the expressive power and pervasive influence of those artists who take the world not as it comes to them — sensible, orthodox, predictable — but as they would like it to be.
Continue reading »
By Psyche | October 10, 2009
Saturday Signal: sifting the signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.
It’s been a weird week for news from beyond our atmosphere.
NASA bombed the moon, Guy Laliberté is the first clown in space, and only fat American children know the truth: Pluto is still a planet.
It’s a strange world we live in when what’s happening at McDonalds makes more sense than with NASA.
- Eimear O’Hagan decides that Pagans, or “new witches” are “Kooky, sexy, cool” in an article for News of the World, and provides three attractive young women as examples. Though, at one point O’Hagan does call one of them bonkers. Aren’t these affectionately deranged portrayals of modern Pagans a little early? Usually they sprout like mushrooms around Hallowe’en, and this one’s from early September.
- In “Eye Exam: Perverted Tactics“, Jason Foumberg writes about paintings on view by William S. Burroughs, including his abstract portrait of Aleister Crowley.
- The William Blake Archive describes itself as “an online hypermedia environment that allows its users to access high-quality electronic reproductions of a growing portion of Blake’s work”. Neat.
As always, if you find something weird, cool or otherwise noteworthy, please e-mail me about it. If you’re pro-promotion, include your name and website for extra credit. Thanks!
