Rainy Days Sponsered by Anger

It is raining in Brooklyn, and so the bonfired record release party that I was going to attend today (for White Magic's Dark Stars EP), has been rescheduled due to the fact that rain and bonfires do not coexist willingly. So I stay indoors, in a black velvet robe, to imbibe the early films of Kenneth Anger, courtesy of a relatively recent release of his volumes on DVD. And then to broadcast my immediate reactions via our holiest, the internet.

"Puce Moment"
The advantage of DVD viewing is undoubtedly the occasioned enlightening commentary feature. Therewithin, K.A. reveals that the scene in which actress Yvonne Marquis is transported outdoors on her chaise lounge was inspired by the 1920's fantasy painter Florine Stettheimer:


Sunday Afternoon in the Country (1917)

Family Portrait #2 (1933)

The soundtrack--psychedelic folky rock by Jonathan Halper--is dull and glittering, haunting, deloveliness (and can be found here & here).

The Dark Side of the Summer of Love

This article in the Playboy July 2007 issue actually delivers what is promised by the title. And the cover illustration is by the incredible Yuko Shimzu (who I studied illustration under at SVA for a year). Click on the pages to be directed to readable scans.












I dug up the flyer, mentioned in the article, that was distributed on Haight. It expresses the same dreary realities created by the mass countercultural migration to the Haight-Ashbury in the latter 60's... in beautiful and hopeless hippie colloquy: