Sdtrk: ‘Specialist’ by Interpol

(gleefully stolen from Penda’s Backroom)
Wow, I ended up doing a lot better than I thought. And I didn’t use any reference material at all! Thumbs up!
But I was hoping I’d rate a Brady or Sutcliffe. 😛

I do actually have several books and compendiums about serial killers currently gathering dust on my shelves — maybe it’s time to crack those spines again, for old-times’ sake. Ha, a pun!

Somewhat-yet-not-really related: Go read Tsugumi Ohba’s manga ‘Death note‘ — it’s completely mental

Sdtrk: ‘It’s not you’ by Le futur pompiste

I was in the midst of a micro-quandary a couple of days ago: I was sat there, thinking to myself, ‘y’know, “Shouting etc etc” is an incomplete but rather accurate reflection on the various things I’m interested in. However, it seems that most of the stuff that I love is stuff that most people either have no reference points for, or simply can’t get into.’ So I was thinking ‘what if, perhaps, I went less for obscurity, and instead tried to write about things that were more personal?’ I quickly realised that that would result in a blog that would be updated probably four or five times a year. I’ve really nothing worth noting going on in my life right at the moment — please select from either Dodgy, Hideous Job or Boring, Stultifying Academia, and I’m not keen on writing about either of those subjects. At length, anyway.
Then I remembered something that one of my heroes, Ian Curtis, once mentioned about his work — ‘We do it for ourselves, but we hope other people will still like it’. Writing the kinds of posts that you find here make me happy, for the most part. I love passing on factoids about long-since-closed exposition sites, or going on in obsessive detail about RealDoll developments, or delivering a series of links to various and sundry things. I figured that people reading ‘Shouting etc etc’ will walk away from it with varying levels of satisfaction — some may get quite a lot out of a post, whether it’s amusement, knowledge, or both, and some may not get as much out of it. But I’m certain that everyone will agree that at the very least, it’s interesting*, and ultimately, that’s not too disappointing of an assessment.

Between now and the next thrilling post, why not have a go at another Edward Gorey-related quiz?

You will swallow some tacks. You are a little
weird, maybe not so much in a good way. Buy a
yellow tie and wear it on your head.

What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?
brought to you by Quizilla

*keep in mind that I use the adjective ‘interesting’ to mean ‘not necessarily good or bad’

Sdtrk: ‘At amber’ by Morrissey

Mannequins? Wearing vintage air stewardess uniforms??

Left, Delta Air Lines, 1958; right, Allegheny Airlines Winter uniform 1969 – 1971

Not surprisingly, I’m all over it

Sdtrk: ‘Hey let loose your love’ by The focus group

COWORKER IN HIS LATE TWENTIES (addressing another coworker): This guy just blew me off and told me he couldn’t make a donation because he’s got jetlag.
What’s jetlag?
ME: *gritting teeth*

I swear to christ, stupidity should be painful

Sdtrk: ‘The march of pure mathematical evil that ends and results in war’ by Add N to (X)

When filmmaker Allison De Fren stopped round round last Summer to shoot her documentary, she had asked me if I knew of any other people throughout history who also formed relationships with Synthetik partners. One of the only two I could think of off the top of my head was Oskar Kokoschka, a Viennese Expressionist painter from the beginning of the 20th Century. He had had an intense three-year relationship with Alma Mahler, who was his model, his muse, and his lover. Unfortunately, things got a wee bit too intense for Alma, and the affair ended; however, he was still obsessed with her. Later Kokoschka learned that she was not only seeing someone new, but also that she had aborted what was thought to be his child. Kokoschka then went to serve as a lieutenant during WWI, where he received a bayonet wound, and was captured behind enemy lines.

By 1918, Kokoschka was living in Dresden after recovering physically and mentally from the war, but he still found himself obsessed with Alma. He then contacted dollmaker Hermine Moos to assemble a life-sized and anatomically-correct replica of his former lover, in order to fill the void in his heart. After several months of correspondence, during which he sent copious notes, paintings and sketches as to how the Alma-Puppe was to look, Moos finished the Doll about a year later.

Alma-puppe, with her creator Hermine Moos (right)

The packing-case arrived. Kokoschka writes: “In a state of feverish anticipation, like Orpheus calling Eurydice back from the Underworld, I freed the effigy of Alma Mahler from its packing. As I lifted it into the light of day, the image of her I had preserved in my memory stirred into life. “He got his servant to spread rumours about the doll, to give the public impression that she was a real woman: “for example, that I had hired a horse and carriage to take her out on sunny days, and rented a box for her at the Opera in order to show her off”.
quoted from this site

Despite Kokoschka’s initial excitement, apparently Moos’ replica left him sexually unsatisfied, so the Alma-Puppe was simply employed as a life-model, which garnered him some thirty pen-and-ink drawings.
Unfortunately, the Alma-Puppe met with a tragic fate, as one evening, at a party that Kokoschka held in his studio,

I gave a big champagne Party with chamber music, during which my maid Hulda exhibited the doll in all its beautiful clothes for the last time. When dawn broke – I was quite drunk, as was everyone else – I beheaded it out in the garden and broke a bottle-of red wine over its head.

A sad end to a life too short..

I have to say that in researching Alma-Puppe’s brief existence, I’ve found most of my info from two sources; the one linked above, and a couple of pages on a site dealing with Alma Mahler, and sometimes the information proved to be contradictory. One states that Kokoschka wilfully had the rumours and stories spread of his attending the opera with Alma-Puppe, whereas the other site states that his housemaid Hulda started them, being a scurrilous (and possibly jealous) gossip. So one’s really left to draw their own conclusions.. At the very least, it can’t be denied that Alma-Puppe inspired Kokoschka on some level. It almost goes without saying that if I had a TARDIS, Sidore-chan and I would have to pay the pair a visit during their happier days..
Sometime in the near-future, I’ll do a write-up on the Other iDollator from ages past, Hans Bellmer..

On a completely unrelated note, this is Post Number 275. Happy Friday the 13th!

Sdtrk: ‘L’éducation’ by Aline

Mice! They’re small, they tend to squeak whether or not you’re squeezing them, and they keep chewing on stuff. Sometimes they wear little rollneck jumpers, and star in films. Despite the fact that cats seem to enjoy them, a lot of people don’t really like ’em. But I’ll tell you this: don’t fuck with them, or they’ll set your whole goddamn house on fire.

Blazing mouse sets fire to house

A US man who threw a mouse onto a pile of burning leaves could only watch in horror as it ran into his house and set the building ablaze.

Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, found the mouse in his home and wanted to get rid of it.

“I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house,” he was quoted as saying by AP.

Though no-one was injured, the house and everything in it was destroyed.

“I’ve seen numerous house fires, but nothing as unique as this one,” Fire Department Captain Jim Lyssy said.

New Mexico has seen several major blazes after unseasonably dry and windy conditions which have destroyed 10 homes and devastated more than 53,000 acres (21,200 hectares) of land.

In a way, he kinda deserves what he got for throwing a live mouse into open flames, but nevertheless..
First we had to watch out for squirrels, now the mice are after us. THESE ARE TRULY THE END TIMES

Sdtrk: ‘No love to give’ by The United States of America

O, this entry’s a bizarre one. Not necessarily due to the building itself, which brings bold new meaning to the term ‘fab’, but of the odd circumstances surrounding it. Tonight, our spotlight swivels with a bit of a squeak, due to insuficient joint lubrication, and illuminates Villa Spies (pronounced ‘spees’, just so you know), designed by Staffan Berglund, and finished in 1969.

At the press of a button, Jetsons style, the central table and chairs rise into the ceiling, while a dining table rises up from the kitchen below. At the press of another button, slides can be projected onto the walls or the colour of the room can be changed via lighting control – an idea that has only recently reappeared in interior design.
quoted from this site

Lovely, lovely, lovely. HOWEVER! Finding info not in Swedish on Villa Spies (now known as Villa Fjolle) was a bit of a barney, as it was pretty much looked down upon by the architectural community upon completion, and the first monograph to actually discuss it and show it in detail was only just published in 1996. ‘Looked down upon?’, you ask, incredulous. ‘Why, wouldn’t this be the perfect place for sexy Moonbase operatives such as Lt. Gay Ellis to relax after her month-long shifts on the Moon, working with SHADO to defend Earth from alien attacks??’ That’s exactly what I said! Well, it appears that with the aforementioned design of the elevating diningroom column, it was implied that the homeowners would have servants preparing your meals downstairs, which, in an enlightened Sixties-era home in progressively thinking Sweden, was simply ‘not done’. Hrm…

Were I an occupant of Villa Spies and inviting people round to dinner, I’d just make it down in the under-kitchen, set the readied plates on the table, and then have my guests enter. ‘Where the heck’s Davecat?’ they’d ask, approaching the centre of the livingroom. Then suddenly, I’d flip whatever switch, and ascend dramatically from the lower floor, smirking like a pro from behind the dinner table, as the meal would arrive. Preferably as the theme from ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ played over the speakers. ‘No, Mr Bond, I expect you to eat!’

Many thanks go out to Marc Berting, proprietor of ‘Seventies Design‘, which is where I first spotted Villa Spies. Ta very much for the info!