Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Please, just watch it!!!!!

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Part 1

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Part 2

the book

Jiri Barta's "The Club of the Discarded"

Just watched this serious of animations in a collection called "Cartoon Noir" (2000) on instant Netflix (Read the animation line-up HERE).

My favorite piece was called "The Club of the Discarded," or "The Club of the Laid Off" depending on the title translation.  It is a piece from Czech animator Jiri Barta (about Barta).

It is about mannequins.  Check it out!

"The Club of the Laid Off" Part 1

"The Club of the Laid Off" Part 2

Definitely gritty and Svankmajer-inspired.  I LOVE that you can see the strings tying the mannequins down.

MAGGOTS by Brian Chippendale

Found this awesome book of comics in the CalArts library, "Maggots" by Brian Chippendale.  It's just FILLED with drawings.  It looks like it's all illustrated above Japanese or some sort of Asian text.  So simple, yet so expressive.  The book is super small so some of the middles didn't scan very well.  Also, I had to put ALL the pages I scanned because they're really cool and I couldn't decide which to pick!

Alexander Calder's "Flying Circus"

WATCH Clips from Calder's "Flying Circus!"

Simple, beautiful, and amazing!

AND it MOVES!!!

OK Go "The Muppet Show Theme Song"

WhAaAt?!  So silly.

OK Go "Muppet Show Theme Song"

Charles Bukowski's "Bluebird"

charles bukowski - bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I'm too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I'm not going

to let anybody see

you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I pur whiskey on him and inhale

cigarette smoke

and the whores and the bartenders

and the grocery clerks

never know that

he's

in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I'm too tough for him,

I say,

stay down, do you want to mess

me up?

you want to screw up the

works?

you want to blow my book sales in

Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I'm too clever, I only let him out

at night sometimes

when everybody's asleep.

I say, I know that you're there,

so don't be

sad.

then I put him back,

but he's singing a little

in there, I haven't quite let him

die

and we sleep together like

that

with our

secret pact

and it's nice enough to

make a man

weep, but I don't

weep, do

you?

Allen Ginsberg's "Howl"

Allen Ginsberg, in my opinion, is one of the best minds of OUR Generation (and by "our" I mean we as a human race).  He was a pioneer for the Beat Generation.  He also coined the phrase "flower power."  He believed in love.  His poem "Howl," when published, was put on trial for being explicit--an obscenity trial.  Besides the fact the the court ignored the blatant violation of Ginsberg's First Amendment right to freedom of speech, those fighting to censor his work attempted to measure the poem's validity through pre-conceived literary conventions.  "Howl" was thought to be so explicit but also so profound because it broke said conventions.  The conclusion of the trial brought attention to the fact that people are entitled to the right of free speech, but understanding is not a guarantee.  One does not have to understand art for it to be so.  And the artist deserves the right to their own expression and, as such, the right to not explain their expression. 

Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman recently directed the film "Howl" (2010), a mockumentary of Allen Ginsberg, "Howl" and it's life on trial.  All of the dialog in the film is nonfiction, rooted in real conversation, interviews and documentation of the trial.  There is a fair amount of creative license given to the acted content.  The film has four aspects: Allen Ginsberg in the interview setting, Allen Ginsberg reading "Howl" at a poetry open-mic night, CGI-animation to accompany the poetry readings, and the trial scene.  The film bounces between these four aspects.  I highly recommend the film, except for the animation.  Ask me why in person and I'll certainly tell you--there will be a long conversation about the animation part.  Watch the trailer for "Howl" HERE.

The man himself.

Here are some of my favorite excerpts from "Howl."  Read the entirety of the poem (I, II, and III) HERE.  Read the "Footnote to Howl" HERE.

I'll start at the beginning - it seems slightly blasphemous to begin without it - then add on from there.

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards...

who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts.

who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music,

who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity,

who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy,

with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 A.M. and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closer, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination--

ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you're really in the total animal soup of time--

who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images

the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death,

II

Moloch in whom I sit lonely!  Moloch in whom I dream Angels!  Crazy in Moloch!  Cocksucker in Moloch!  Lacklove and manless in Moloch!

Dreams!  adorations!  illuminations!  religions!  the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!

Minds!  New loves!  Mad generation!  down on the rocks of Time!

III

I'm with you in Rockland
   where you band on the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse

I'm with you in Rockland
   where you will split the heavens of Long Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb.

Footnote to Howl

Holy the groaning saxophone!  Holy the bop apocalypse!  Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace & junk & drums!

Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!

Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!


...one day, I hope to have the entirety of this poem committed to memory...

Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

I've been waking up with the phrase "I've come unstuck in time" in my head for the past few months.   Vonnegut has been calling me from the other side, beckoning me to re-read this book.

Some wonderful text snippets from a brilliant man, sorely missed in my universe.  So it goes.

(lovely title page)

Slaughterhouse-Five

OR

THE CHILDREN'S

CRUSADE

A DUTY-DANCE WITH DEATH

BY

Kurt Vonnegut

A FOURTH-GENERATION GERMAN-AMERICAN

NOW LIVING IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES

ON CAPE COD

[AND SMOKING TOO MUCH],

WHO, AS AN AMERICAN INFANTRY SCOUT

HORS DE COMBAT,

AS A PRISONER OF WAR,

WITNESSED THE FIRE-BOMBING

OF DRESDEN, GERMANY,

"THE FLORENCE OF THE ELBE,"

A LONG TIME AGO,

AND SURVIVED TO TELL THE TALE.

THIS IS A NOVEL

SOMEWHAT IN THE TELEGRAPHIC SCHIZOPHRENIC

MANNER OF TALES

OF THE PLANET TRALFAMADORE,

WHERE THE FLYING SAUCERS

COME FROM.

PEACE.

<3

The queer earth was a mosaic of sleepers who nestled like spoons.

And Tralfamadorians don't see human beings as two-legged creatures, either.  They see them as great millepedes--"with babies' legs at one end and old people's legs at the other."

Billy Pilgrim was on fire, having stood too lose to the glowing stove.  The hem of his little coat was burning.  It was a quiet, patient sort of fire--like the burning of punk.

"How's the patient?" he asked Derby.

"Dead to the world."

"But not actually dead."

"No."

"How nice--to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive."

Derby described the incredible artificial weather that Earthlings sometimes create for other Earthlings when they don't want those other Earthlings to inhabit Earth any more.  Shells were bursting in the treetops with terrific bangs, he said, showering down knives and needles and razorblades.  Little lumps of lead in copper jackets were crisscrossing the woods under the shellbursts, zipping along much faster than sound.

"Jesus--if Kilgore Trout could only write!" Rosewater exclaimed.  He had a point: Kilgore Trout's unpopularity was deserved.  His prose was frightful.  Only his ideas were good.

More later, when I finish re-reading.

Denis Kitchen | Kitchen Sink Press

Also at MoCCA: Denis Kitchen.  Comics Comics Comics.  Definitely an R. Crumb influence to his work (he's awesome!).  Here's a taste:
-Denis Kitchen @ MoCCA
-DenisKitchen.com

The coolest piece in the exhibit.

This is the flat print version.

The 3-D version!

Complete with exhibit viewing glasses!

Not in the exhibit but still cool:

(And it's true too!)

Vague project prompts=free imagination.

Unrestricted freedom=challenging.

Many times, people ask for unlimited freedom,

but they don't know what to do with it once it's granted.

I am uncertain if this is Denis Kitchen's work, 

but it came up in the Google search and I had to post it!

Liza Donnelly

Also at MoCCA right now: Liza Donnelly, most known for her comics in New Yorker magazine.  She has a great sense of humor--a real salty lady.  :)  Mama's approval, for sure!
-Liza Donnelly @ MoCCA

-LizaDonnelly.com

 

Al Jaffee

While I was home for Christmas, my friend Kevin and I went to MoCCA for the very first time.  MoCCA is the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York City (MoCCA).  Right now, they have several exhibits, but the featured exhibit was work from comic artist Al Jaffee.  He is well known for the work he's done for Mad magazine, most notably the Mad Magazine Fold-In comics, comics that read as two separate images when folded in and when unfolded.  P.S. He is presently working on an illustrated autobiography!  Several of these illustrations were included in the exhibit. 

-Al Jaffee @ MoCCA

-Al Jaffee Autobiography

The exhibit postcard.

Jaffee's work was exhibited on orange walls!

I'm not sure if they're orange all the time or just for this.

I'd be interested in knowing the answer to that, actually.

This was also in the exhibit.

An example of a Mad Fold-In.

What a delightful man!