Bohemian and free-spirited Anne Brigman was a photographer whose work seems to draw upon a strange and wonderful blend of pagan mythology, European symbolism, and “her childhood exposure to the native beliefs of the Hawaiian people.”
Best known for dramatic photographs of the female nude, Anne made nature her studio –California’s spectacular and still relatively remote Sierra Nevada Mountains –and fully integrated the human body into the landscape.
I read the following about Anne Brigman and couldn’t stop thinking about it:
“She visited the Sierras often enough that she developed what she called “friendships” with several individual trees and peaks. In 1926, after she’d become an established photographer, Brigman wrote an article for Camera Craft magazine in which she described her relationship with one such tree. “One day on one of my wanderings I found a juniper – the most wonderful juniper that I’ve met in my eighteen years of friendship among them…It was a great character like the Man of Gallilee or Moses the Law-giver, or the Lord Buddha, or Abraham Lincoln…Storm and stress well borne made it strong and beautiful. I climbed into it. Here was the perfect place for a figure; here the place for the right arm to rest, and even though my feet were made clumsy by boots, I could see and feel where the feet would fit perfectly into the cleft that went to its base.”
Brigman describes how she spent a couple days “caring” for the tree; tidying up around its roots, removing unattractive stones and pebbles, trimming “small extraneous branches” and generally preparing it for a photograph that she might never take. ”
A year before her death in Eagle Rock, near Los Angeles, in 1950, she published a book of her poems and photographs titled Songs of a Pagan. I would love to have this book on my shelf, but at $550+, well, I suppose I will have to admire this pagan priestess of photography and her gentle dryads from afar.
The Heart of the Storm, 1914
Female Nude Standing on Large Rock Over a Lake, 1923
This is has not been a great month, but I am not even going to get into it, because I am angry–I’ve been at a low boil for days–but if I delve into and explore any reasons why, even in some vague, oblique way, I just know I will commit to words something regrettable. Suffice it to say I am taking many, many deep breaths and trying not to spend too much time dwelling on things.
However, it has put me in a perfect mood to talk about the perfumes that I hate. I am in fine form to go on about such things right now, there is no doubt about it. Without further preamble, here are some shitty-ass perfumes that I despise. Folks who know my preferences and predilections have probably read these rants before, and for that I apologize; feel free to skip right to the comments where you can tell me all about a scent that you loathe. Let’s commiserate together, stinky friends.
The first scents on this list are probably the most hateful because they evoke an aggressive emotional response from me. The rest, eh, they’re just really gross.
I hate Victor and Rolf’s Flowerbomb so much that I nearly fly into a rage. Described as “an explosive bouquet of fresh and sweet notes”, I personally think it smells like a conflagration of petty spite, mean-spiritedness, and small minds. Like bigoted small town pageant moms and the shitty popular girls in 80s movies. It simultaneously makes me want to cringe and cry. It’s one of Daim Blond’s (see below) awful cronies. It’s all the Heathers. Also: it’s an enormous lie. It smells nothing like any flower. As to what it does smell like, precisely, I cannot pinpoint. A shallow dish of sugar water with some sneezy, cloying powder mixed in. Like Koolaid, I guess. It smells like a celebutaunt-inspired Koolaid. Or…unless, of course, there is a blossom or bloom that smells like Bongo jeans and hair-sprayed bangs and the wretched duo of Jennifer W. and Amanda P. in the 7th and 8th grade. How’s it feel to be the inspiration for the world’s worst fragrance, you dumb, hateful bitches.
With regard to Serge Luten’s Daim Blond, I do smell all of the things that people seem to love about it: the elusive whiff of soft suede from the inner pocket of an impossibly expensive handbag, the cool floral iris, the bowl of apricots sitting in a beam of afternoon sunlight.And I almost feel badly saying anything negative at all, since it came from a very special, generous person. On me, however, this does not add up to anything special – just a lightly sweet, vaguely fruity scent that lingers just above my skin and doesn’t seem to want to get to know me very well. Pretty much like most of my high school experience. But then again, this smells like everything I didn’t like about most girls my age in high school, and honestly, probably many people who are my age now (see also: everyone in Naples, FL).
This isn’t to make a judgement about you folks who love it, of course – it takes all kinds. But it’s difficult to look at something like fragrance objectively, when it conjures so many associations and memories with it. And to me, Daim Blond is starting to smell like everyone who every ignored me, and so I in turn came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t want to waste my time with these boring, uninteresting people anyhow. See? Now I am making judgements. It’s gone from a slightly pretty, expensive smelling scent to boring and uninteresting. I think Daim Blonde basically sums up Normcore for me; I have taken to calling it “Dame Bland”.
And there’s more…
💩 Burberry Brit: expecting scones & Earl Grey? Nope, you get fruit cocktail and jello molds
A gathering of death related links that I have encountered in the past month or so. From somber to hilarious, from informative to creepy, here’s a snippet of things that have been reported on or journaled about related to matters of death & dying & mortality.
Mothertonguetied: The Fantasy of Belonging. Sonya Vatomsky on memory and language and losing parts of yourself and being seen for what you’ve become. There’s probably a Russian word for all of those things; Sonya might whisper it to us and seal it with a black-lipped kiss.
Bad Books For Bad People Tenebrous Kate and Jack Guignol cover the weirdest, kinkiest, and most outrageous fiction they can unearth.
[EDIT: This article was originally written in 2016. I have noticed a large amount of traffic pointing to it and realized it was all directed from the same blog post. Please allow me to point out that art is dark as often as it is light, and not all of the subjects that artists tackle are positive, beautiful, or full of happy thoughts. Artists often paint their own trials and traumas onto the canvas, and their palettes frequently reflect the very real horrors in this world. That does not make these works “evil” or “satanic” or promoting “depraved illuminati Luciferian practices” Critical thinking, people. It’s a thing. And shame on that blogger for using art to promote her ridiculous agenda.]
Polish artist Aleksandra Waliszewska creates some of your most brutal nightmares: those savage, dreadful dreams that set a deep sleeper to screaming, and where upon waking, you can only gibber incoherent nonsense regarding your nocturnal horrors and why you were moved to wet the bed in terror last night.
Unfortunate events abound, and a trail of carnage, both physical and psychological, is an underlying theme that streaks gore-soaked and deep through Waliszewska’s paintings. Whether random or ritualistic, the violence runs rampant, with characters either coming to brutal ends or who are depicted perpetrating and engaging in the brutality themselves. Sometimes it is unclear as to who is the victim and who is the villain, and yet, even those who would seem blood-splattered prey possess malignant, nearly obscene expressions. Even the animals in Wasilewska’s depraved visions sport sly, wicked countenances.
Beasts of every variety, as well as children–creatures one normally associates with innocence and purity–are in on the mayhem as well, participating in malicious behaviors and gruesome, perverse deeds. Whether against the backdrop of a well-lit classroom, a shadowy forest landscape, or the viscera-strewn confines of a dusty cave, madness, magic, and mythology cavort in hand in bloody hand.
And yet we can’t look away, can we? Waliszewska is flaying the face of the mundane and peeling back the layers to give us a peek at what lies beneath–attraction and repulsion and the multilayered shitshow strata that is the human condition.
When it comes to the the symbolism and meaning one might be inclined to seek in the jarring imagery and morbid figures she creates, one gets the sense from previous interviews and commentary from the artist herself that Waliszewska is more interested in form and emotion than imbuing her works with a deeper forethought and “over-intellectualizing” such things. An artist of few words, when asked what it is that draws people to her work, she notes laconically, “…I can only deduce it has something to do with a fascination with sex and violence.” (source)
A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and recipient of scholarships awarded by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Aleksandra Waliszewska has had more than 20 solo exhibitions in Poland and abroad over the past decade, and has her work published in collections by My Dance The Skull, United Dead Artists, Les Editions Du 57, Drippy Bone Books, and Editions Kaugummi.
All images owned by Aleksandra Waliszewska. Her work can be found on her tumblr, her flickr and her Facebook page.
(This article was originally posted at Dirge; the site is no longer active.)
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
“A Chilling Chosen Few” was originally written for and posted at After Dark In the Playing Fields on Halloween in 2010, as a companion piece for 12 Terrifying Tales, a list of spooky stories which I also shared again here at Unquiet Things earlier this month.
Please note that, although this list is now several years old, these remain my go-to freaky films: the kind which leaves bruised and haunting imprints on the memory, the shadowy images I watch on the movie screen of my inner eyelids when I can’t sleep at night and have worked myself up into a fever pitch of paranoia and panic.
What are some of your favorites for eerie, eldritch viewing? Whether mildly gruesome or pants-shittingly terrifying, tell me about all about them in the comments! (I live in permanent FOMO, you know, so I can’t stand the thought that there is something amazing out there that I don’t know about and have not yet seen.)
Suspiria (Dario Argento), 1977 A moody, atmospheric assault of the senses. A young American woman arrives at a European ballet school where nothing is as it seems. Hallucinatory mayhem ensues.
The Resurrected (Dan O’Bannon) 1992 An intelligent, brooding adaptation of Lovecraft’s “The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward”. Chris Sarandon at his creepily aristocratic best.
Cube (Vincenzo Natali) 1997 Kafkaesque sci-horror reminiscent of a visceral Twilight Zone episode. A handful of strangers wake up inside a monstrous maze of interlocking cubicles which are armed with lethal traps. Why were these individuals chosen? What is this place they are in? Is there even anything outside the Cube?
Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (John D. Hancock) 1971 An eerie, dreamlike film in which a woman’s already fragile psyche undergoes further trauma at the isolated farmhouse where she initially sought solace. Is there really something sinister going on between the mysterious drifter and the baleful townfolk – or is Jessica spiraling further into delusion and madness?
Dawn of the Dead (Zack Snyder) 2004 Romero’s 1978 original was “sacred ground” for horror buffs, but even though I saw this remake 6 years ago, there are some nights I still can’t sleep thinking upon certain scenes; to this day I am convinced I will awake to find my neighbor’s child gazing upon me hungrily, ready to mindlessly, viciously eat my face off.
Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (Bob Clarke) 1972 A strangely awkward film, a bit of nostalgic whimsy on my part. A flamboyant theatre director brings his acting troupe to a remote island cemetery to raise the dead,as a practical joke. This turns out badly for all involved; as we all know, these practices are no laughing matter.
Lemora: A Child’s Tale of The Supernatural (Richard Blackburn) 1975 An orphaned young innocent is lured to a remote mansion on the outskirts of the strange southern gothic shantytown populated by bizarre mutants, and soon finds herself in the clutches of the wicked (and undead) Lemora. A long, unsettling nightmare of a film.
Imprint (Takashi Miike, Masters of Horror) 2005 A tale of lost love that grows stranger and more horrifying as the story unfolds. Contains one of the grisliest torture scenes that I have ever seen.
The Mist (Frank Darabont) 2007 Excellent Stephen King Adaptation (at least I thought so, but I don’t want to argue with you about it); local folks are trapped in a supermarket when a mysterious mist envelops the town – among the incredibly frightening monsters here, the worst and most brutish might actually be the human people. Also, I think this may have the bleakest ending of any movie, ever.
Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey) 1962 After a traumatic accident, a woman seems to be losing all contact with the world of the living. Worthwhile viewing for the gorgeously oppressive atmosphere alone.
The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona) 2008 A woman returns to her childhood home – a seaside orphanage – to reopen the establishment and raise her adopted son. The child’s mysterious disappearance, and frightening, otherworldly goings-on contribute to what is a quietly chilling, heartbreaking film.
A Tale of Two Sisters (Ji-woon Kim) 2003 A tale of tragedy and madness, based on an old Korean legend/folktale.
Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot) 1955
*And a bonus pick from my dear friend The Kindred Spirit, who shares that since having seen Les Diaboliques, “I have been wary of face-like bathtub faucets ever since!”
Just kidding. There will never be a new black! This is evidenced by the 666 (approx.) black tee shirts we have in our wardrobe. Leather harnesses, tulle skirts, and velvet cloaks look marvelous and are great fun for a night out (or hell, grocery shopping or a trip to the post office if you like to give the normies a show) but let’s face it–at the end of the day we just want to be comfortable. And there is nothing, I mean nothing, more comfortable than a black tee shirt. Yes, black tee shirts are more cozy. There’s science to back that up, somewhere.
We also know that we, and no doubt you, too, need to give our pile of ratty old black tees a thorough going-through because man, that shit’s old and nasty. Pilled, worn threadbare, curry-stained and eternally covered with cat fur—mein Gott, we’re gross.
Maybe, and this is just a suggestion, but give it some thought: these loyal wardrobe staples have given you their all and it’s time to let them die with dignity. Gather them up into the charity pile. Or cut ’em up and use ’em for crafts or home improvement projects or light bondage with a consensual partner (make sure they’re your tees on this last point; tossing out someone else’s stuff is likely not to result in sexytimes.)
…wait, wait! Put that middle finger away. You don’t think we’d make you go through such an agonizing exercise without some recommendations as to replacements for your beloved black scraps of comfort, do you? See below for some wicked black tee suggestions that are anything but basic.
Dead Inside Muscle Tee
Cozy coffin times with the“Dead Inside” muscle tee. FOXBLOOD // $39
Feminism Means Equality Tee
The Feminism Means Equality tee: shit yeah it does, motherfuckers. CatCoven // $25
Do you guys remember that little project, our wee devil baby, the demonic thing on which Becky Munich and I and a coven of infernally talented artists and writers collaborated, conjured forth from the depths of the abyss, and birthed into the world in the early months of 2016? Sure you do! I mean, I hope you do, right?
Our Occult Activity Book for artistic creatures of the night & weirdos who like to dabble in the arcane arts (using crayons and colored pencils, of course!) was a rousing success and sold out in three weeks! As it was a very limited run–“spooky and special”, according to io9!– we decided that we were not going to revive it and raise it from the dead for another go round, but instead make a Volume Two that is twice as filled with magic and witchery, and even more splendid than the first!
This second book is scheduled for release in Fall of 2016, and to whet your appetite for more bewitching spell craft, dark arts, and esoteric fun times, I have gathered a collection of teaser images from the forthcoming book, below. I hope that you are as excited as we our for the release of our devil baby Jr., Occult Activity Book Volume Two!
{Art credits: Becky Munich, Carisa Swenson, Dana Glover, Dan Bythewood, Tenebrous Kate, & Casket Glass Studio; words by Jack Shear, Heather Drain, and Sonya Vatomsky.}
There are certain times–early mornings, late nights, studying, or writing–where I prefer my music with a minimal amount of stimuli. No data, no information, and especially no words.
Sounds that become so deeply a part of the background, to the extent that that they are now the space within which you exist. Music which summons imagery and energies that both unnerve and entrance, and engages the mind in such a way that the listener is transported to realities outside the confines of their own space and time.
For example…
A cavernous alien construct, floating through the void of space. Industrial creaks and groans, the monstrous pressure and eerie whistle of wind through airducts. The bleak dread as you contemplate the cold stars, utterly alone. The stark terror that besets you as strange, hollow sounds reverberate and echo throughout the craft, the deep bass and unnerving thrum of a heartbeat much heavier and older than your own.
A dark moon, a murky invocation. Dense shadows and fog, the low drone of wordless chants dwindled to a buzzing murmuration. The rattle and reedy thread of dying breaths. Desperate howls and unearthly shrieks as the veil of night is rent in twain with a vision of the unnameable. The sound of things that may best remain unknown.
Or if you please: lying alone on a darkened hillside, surrounded by enormous weather-worn stones, these rocky behemoths stretching to the midnight sky, humming with ancient power. The wind sighs an indeciperhable threnody through the trees. Between the earth and the moon lies you, a conduit for all things beautiful and terrible, vibrating with those simultaneous realities.
If you find yourself sufficiently creeped out but perversely intrigued by these menacing, melancholic scenarios, it may please to you know that there are musicians similarly inspired, whose creations fall into the dark ambient genre of music. Sounds of eerie abstraction, dissonant drones and resonances, and unsettling snatches of melody, evocative of solitude and horror and even an austere bliss. Should you wish to hear more, continue reading for my personal map through the realms of sinister soundscapes and sonic oblivion. There are obviously many more artists than are listed here who fall into this category, and there are many different pathways upon which to summon the glooms. Begin your journey with these five ghostly transmissions from the abyss.
Lustmord
Widely credited as the originator of the dark ambient genre, Lustmord’s Brian Williams has worked with inconoclastic industrial acts such as Throbbing Gristle, as well as contributing his own brand of unsettling sounds to countless cinematic scores. The persistent creep and shadowy paranoia of O T H E R was my first introduction to his eerie œuvre, and while everyone is certainly entitled to a favorite, this album remains my go-to for an evening alone, manifesting dread and drinking deeply of the dark.
Kammarheit
Swedish dark ambient project Kammarheit’s The Starwheel was re-issued in 2016, and offers lush, deep drones and gentle washes of reverb that produce an effect nearly spiritual in its unexpected profundity, and perfect for conjuring meditations upon the immense night and one’s very small place in a universe quite vast.
Bohren & der Club of Gore
German ambient/jazz crossover Bohren & der Club of Gore describe their sound as an “unholy ambient mixture of slow jazz ballads, Black Sabbath doom and down tuned Autopsy sounds.” Evocative of a lounge-noir, Lynchian atmosphere, the solemn mood and lumbering melodies produce a nauseating unease in the listener, and yet with repetition lulls us with its slow, soothing dullness, narcotic in quality, and a luxurious balm for the senses.
Kreng
Enigmatic Belgian artist Kreng (Pepijn Caudron) is an avant-garde alchemist of sound and maybe about whom the less we know, the better– and as far as dark ambient albums go, Kreng’s Grimoire is as spooky as you can get. Ominous strings, brooding horns, and creaking percussion ratchet up tensions to an unbearable, nearly punishing degree, and combined with guttural breaths and operatic vocals, creates a disorienting cacophony, a feverish nightmare from which you fear you may never wake.
ɗʉɭʈ
I’m not certain there is much known about the audio/visual/performance project known as ɗʉɭʈ. A meditation on dark mysticism, medievalism, and the macabre, and inspired by Irish mythology, old ritual and nature, it draws its energy from the inherent esoteric elements in all that is ancient and wild, sacred and savage. And indeed, when one hears this excerpt from “LeftHand in thee Dense Thicket,” one perceives something weighty and full of inconceivable gravity, and gets the sense that they are listening in on the birth of the gods, perhaps even the amniotic fluids of the cosmos itself.
(This article was originally posted at Dirge; the site is now defunct.)
Gosh. It’s been a while since I’ve written about what I am currently up to! I tried to put a brief missive together back in June but I was so frazzled with my grandmother’s illness, I just couldn’t think straight. Let’s try again.
I finally put to use the kitchen aid ice cream paddle attachment that I received as a gift last Christmas (or was it two Christmases ago? Jeez.) and made a beautiful batch of coffee ice cream, just in time for some seriously hot Florida weather. Nearly two months later it has only gotten hotter, but have I made any more ice cream? No. The answer is no, I have not. It will probably be another two years. Such is the life of frou-frou kitchen gadgets.
Speaking of unused Christmas gifts, I received Yotam Ottolenghi’s beautiful vegetarian cookbook Plenty More a year or two ago, and I will shamefacedly admit that other an initial flip through to gaze at the dazzling photos, I hadn’t opened it again since. In searching out some meals that I could ostensibly cook ahead of time and then nibble off pieces for breakfast or lunch as needed, I came across the “cauliflower cake” and thought it looked perfect. I think his recipes are a sort of…Mediterranean fusion, you could say? So, the sort of book with lots of interesting ideas requiring not readily on hand ingredients, and instances where you might look at the recipe title and think, huh, I wonder if that’s really going to work? The cauliflower cake is like a more labor intensive and fancier and perhaps heftier version of a quiche, and we ended up really enjoying it. You can find the recipe over at smitten kitchen, so if you are interested in dusting off your spring form pan and turning on your stove, give it a try.
All summer long I have been making this avocado and crab salad, I think it’s a Tyler Florence recipe, maybe? It’s basically lump crabmeat from the fish guy in your supermarket (not the canned stuff on the shelf, I don’t trust it), mixed with some mayo, sriracha, black sesame seeds, minced green onion, and a wee splash of sesame oil. If I have it on hand, I stir in some diced, seeded cucumber for texture and for, well… roughage, I guess. In the meantime, dice an avocado, sprinkle with lime juice and salt, and mold it together in a little cracked glass dish that is too cute to throw away. Voilà!
This is the perfect breakfast for me. I cannot eat cold cereal in the morning (it makes me a little nauseous; I think I associate it with the existential dread I felt at the prospect of facing a classroom of second graders when I was 7 years old), and I don’t really love oatmeal or fruit because it’s sweet and sweets in the morning make me rather ill. Wow. I never realized how picky I am.
In early June my office got a bit of a revamp, and though I was opposed to it at first (probably because I didn’t want to do any of the work), I was thrilled with how it turned out. No more stacks and piles of crap! No more hand-me-down particle board!
We have bookshelves elsewhere in the house, so these particular cubbyholes are housing reading for research and edification rather than entertainment– as well as a perfume sample station, knitting nooks and a mini mom altar. There’s some empty spaces yet to fill, though, so that either means I will be stuffing junk in them or saving them for something special. Probably the former.
My reading has been all over the place over the past few months. I just finished book one of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and I will confess I know nothing of Sabrina, I never even watched the television series in the 90s. I don’t think I would have expected how…dark this story was; I thought it might be lighthearted and campy/spooky. Except I totally expected how dark it was, because the internet spoiled it for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I can’t wait to read more.
I was immediately sold on I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl after reading the Amazon blurb: a “… film noir set in verse, each poem a miniature crime scene with its own set of clues—frosted eye-shadow, a pistol under a horse’s eye, dripping window units, an aneurysm opening its lethal trap. ….” But in the reading of it…well, to be perfectly honest. I was left feeling pretty dumb and filled with self-loathing. Why wasn’t I getting it? What were all of these readers who have rated it 5-stars seeing that I wasn’t? There were portions in while I was almost there…I was lost in the words and the imagery for just a second, and there was nearly a glimmering of understanding, and then I lost it. As the book wore on, these instances became more frequent and so overall, I mean, yeah–I got it. I think. But it wasn’t a very enjoyable read and I think I finished it out of spite.
I have had my eyes on The Decadent Cookbook for several years now and used a recent weird and creepy cookbook purchasing binge as an excuse to finally pick it up. Described as a slightly sinister and highly literate feast of decadent writing on food, and with chapters such as “Dinner With Caligula”, “Blood, The Vital Ingredient”, and “I Can Recommend the Poodle”, I can’t tell you how excited I am to dig in. Expect a roast flamingo on my supper table very soon.
I have been meaning to watch Morgiana for years and just got around to it this weekend (it’s on YouTube, with subtitles!) It’s gorgeous and captivating and quite eccentric. And as one reviewer says:”… Edward Gorey as filmed by Ken Russell–a sardonic chunk of Victorian penny-dreadful melodrama tweaked to new levels of aesthetic and emotional hysteria.”
The Resurrected (Dan O’Bannon) 1992
Do you guys remember that 
Gosh. It’s been a while since I’ve written about what I am currently up to! I tried to put a brief missive together back in June but I was so frazzled with my grandmother’s illness, I just couldn’t think straight. Let’s try again.
In early June my office got a bit of a revamp, and though I was opposed to it at first (probably because I didn’t want to do any of the work), I was thrilled with how it turned out. No more stacks and piles of crap! No more hand-me-down particle board!
