006. Creature Reliquary
Hello friends,
It feels as though too much time has passed since we last spoke. The cooling weather has left an ache in my tooth. The leaves are changing colors. I have been seeing fewer birds where I walk. I'm not a huge horror movie fan but watching videos about special effects/monster makeup is kind of a guilty pleasure (I know more about sculpting latex on your face than I should). I'm fascinated by character design, the animalistic inspiration behind concepts, how these beasts might present as more humanoid or something else (The X-Files comes to mind). In honor of a (belated) Halloween, for this week I thought I'd share some of my favorite creature-related things.
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Not exactly spooky, but I revisited Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red a handful of days ago. The book follows Greyon, a winged red monster-boy, as he falls in love with Herakles and comes to understand himself. Such a stunning collection of mythic poetry. There's something comforting about its patient, painful unraveling, poems that squeeze at your heart in the most tender way.
A book that has brought me a lot of delight is Nils Buttner's book on Hieronymus Bosch titled Visions and Nightmares. Very little is known about him as an artist, but Buttner does a great job of assembling these floating bits of information, addressing controversies, and discussing Bosch's visual vocabulary. Not to mention the book has beautiful, glossy high-quality details of his paintings.
I read Donika Kelly's debut collection, Beastiary, this past summer. Kelly's 'catalog' style of writing can appear simple, only to hit you moments after your eyes have left the page. Her poems touch on humanity, what it means to live as a Black girl in this world, and lets love collect within the bones of animals. This collection is on the shorter side, so it's great to carry with you as you go out into this wild world.
Over the summer, my family took a road trip and one of our stops was Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. This cave system (possibly the largest in the world) is home to all kinds of blind, albino cave critters and many animals have used the cave systems as shelter and food sources for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. I left with this badass snake bandanna (handkerchief?). Snakes are some of my favorite animals and I particularly love the taxonomy print.
Francesca Woodman is one of my favorite photographers. As Halloween came and went, I thought of two of my favorite photos of hers (undated, unfortunately, I couldn't find accurate info). The first has Woodman spilling out of a cabinet with taxidermy animals. I love how this piece is framed with her head falling out like a discarded doll. The second one, with Woodman at odds with two snarling taxidermy wolves, is absolutely stunning in its simplicity. She didn't use animals often in her images, but when she did the effect is unmistakably Gothic and unsettling, her body bordering on animal. I'm reminded of this passage in her journals: “Am I in the picture? Am I getting in or out of it? I could be a ghost, an animal or a dead body, not just this girl standing on the corner…?”
Perhaps one of the strangest mythical creatures I've ever heard of, the Kasa-obake is a one-eyed, one-legged umbrella-shaped ghost from Japanese folklore. The drawings of this creature are simply awesome. Very little information exists about these characters, although a couple of legends describe the kasa-obake as appearing during rainy nights and those who encounter them are unable to move their feet. Others say that this creature could blow people into the sky on particularly windy days.
Back in 2014, I was lucky enough to go to the Saatchi Gallery in London and see this amazing piece by Colombian artist Rafael Gomezbarros. They're about the size of toddlers, filling the entire room with their swarming forms. The installation, called "Casa Tomada", represents the struggle of migrant workers in Latin America. Up close, you can see how the ants are made from casts of human skulls and bound together by bandaged, dirty cloth. They are seen as 'vermins', yet behind their figures is something very much alive.
Thierry Mugler, for his Spring 1997, decided to draw inspiration from Kafka's Metamorphosis. The result is a stunning collection of insectoid couture. Looks perfect for a female praying mantis after she beheads her mate. You can watch the original runway video here and the rest of the clothes from the show (with details) here.
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If you've ever wondered how and why video games sound the way they do, go check out "Level Up" from Twenty Thousand Hertz. The world of video game sound design can get pretty complex with a lot of moving parts from sound effects, character voices, and musical score, but they do a great job of tracing the history of this audio industry. In this episode, we meet a sound designer who's working on giving a voice to a new fantasy creature (spoiler alert: it involves recording his dog).
I'll be honest, I went into this chilling episode of Lore knowing absolutely nothing about the Jersey Devil. The episode, called "A Devil on the Roof", traces the myth of the Jersey Devil for over 300 years. It's amazing to see how these first-hand accounts over centuries have shaped the mystery of this beast. After you listen to this, you'll start questioning if this beast is a folk legend after all.
In honor of one of my favorite vampire movies, I've been giving the soundtrack for the 2014 Iranian/American classic, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. A self-described "vampire spaghetti Western", the soundtrack moves through a versatile range of songs (from the minimal techno of Free Electric Band's "Bashy" and Radio Tehran's morehttps://open.spotify.com/user/jeremywest/playlist/30GqCg1iMZ0X8LJCHfWj9G classic indie movie sound). Great for listening when you're on the go (and want to feel like a badass vampire roaming the streets). Give the soundtrack a listen here.
If you want to listen to some beautiful poetry this week, I recommend checking out Franny Choi's "Wildlife". This beautiful piece of ecological writing describes an explosion of animals out from the earth: "flesh and fur remapping onto bones as they percussed out". So many beautiful lines and it's great to listen to Choi's changing tones as the poem bursts with images: "swifting over the oil fields--at which the grasses stiffened, shot up a warning scent--which made the beetles shudder from their beds--which spread a rumor among the earthworms".
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I spend a troubling amount of time clicking through various cryptid articles on Wikipedia (big fan of Mothman, Aswangs, Ghost deer, among others). Back in 2014, someone at Buzzfeed published this nifty map of North American cryptids in their native regions. Consider going for a little road trip before the winter sets in to spot some of your favorite creatures. While you're on your road trip, consider stopping by the Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Last week, Eugene and I saw District 9 for the first time. If you aren't familiar with the premise, an alien spaceship appears over Johannesburg and, over the years, the alien creatures are relocated to internment camps. Despite it's 2009 release date, the film is still relevant today in the way that it addresses xenophobia, racism, and systematic government oppression. The design of these alien creatures (also called 'prawns), is well thought out with their insect-like design, biotechnology, and just enough realism to be integrated into this human world. It's really hard to talk about this movie without serious spoilers, but I'd highly recommend if you like sci-fi/alien movies that scrape at the dark core of humanity's political structures.
PBS 's Art Assignment Youtube channel is seriously underrated in my opinion. My favorite series of theirs has to be "Art Cooking", where they tackle a different kind of artist-related history and share the history behind this meal. Their most recent video is about the "Bone Meal", a 7-course meal designed by Gordon Matta-Clark (an anarchist-architect, sculptor, and performance artist whose work focused on deconstructing the design of buildings and rooms) for artist-run Food restaurant in SoHo. The delicious-looking dish involves marrow bones, stuffed bones, and oxtail soup among other bone-related dishes.
Last weekend, Eugene and I got through the newest season of Stranger Things in 2 days (definitely not a healthy viewing habit). This new season brought some terrifying new monsters out of the Upside Down. I'll try not get too spoiler-y but I love how the show brought in this particular virus-looking creature (a terrifying cross between Alien and The Poltergeist).
Mary Wigman was an avant-garde dancer and choreographer in the early 20th century between the two World Wars. Going against the symmetry and perfection of classical ballet, Wigman developed her own style of 'expressive' dance, focused on the relationship between the human body and cosmic power with free-form trance-like movements and ecstatically existential performances. One of her most famous pieces is Hexentanz (Witch dance), which prioritizes bodily movements and rhythm over a set and fixed score. In the dance, Wigman focuses on ritualistic, almost animalistic movement, unleashing her force through precise 'hexing' gestures. You can watch a clip of the dance here.
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I've loved reading this piece from The New Yorker about Eric Charles-Donatien, a plumassier for the fashion world. He quite literally makes a skin for models to slip into. In this piece, he talks about looking for feathers, his love of birds, and the collaborative process of his feathered assembling pieces into bags and dresses. Even if fashion's not your thing, it's so interesting to learn about this under-the-radar kind of art.
A poem that has brought me a lot of strength this week has been Susan Griffin's "Deer Skull". This is the first piece I've ever read by her and I fell in love with her delicate, careful form. There is something so beautiful and awful about reading about someone cleaning a deer skull. Reading this poem feels like biting down into hardened sugar.
I'm a sucker for a good mythology poem and ET Stark's "Seven Conversations with the Minotaur" is no exception. This poem drifts into the air like smoke. It moves with a conversational rhythm, as you find yourself further and further from reality. Through precise language, he slowly builds this labyrinthian scene of burning, destruction, beauty, and longing: "Later / you will fix my neck / and hang coats / from my open mouth."
Lastly, a little bonus. I found this digitized medieval bestiary. You can click through and learn all about medieval art, beasts, and the role of animals in manuscripts and folklore. If you want to learn more about these mythological beasts, I'd also check out this list of animals and their significance. // Over the past couple of weeks, my roommates and I have been dealing with mice in our apartment. They are fast, sneaky little fuckers. That and my inability to not shriek when I see them aside. I've been thinking about the unwelcome symbiotic relationship we have with these creatures, the home we inadvertently give them, and how even the smallest of creatures can appear monstrous in the late hours of the night.
Until next time. The sweetest of dreams,
Ellie
(PS: a correction from the last letter. I attributed a poem to Sharon Olds when it was, in fact, Lynn Emmanuel, I just had an Olds poem open in another tab and my fried brain got them jumbled)