Books - Geek Love

Just finished an incredible book by Katherine Dunn (1989), the story is of a travelling carnival run by Aloysius "Al" Binewski and his wife "Crystal" Lil. When the business begins to fail, Lil gobbles pesticides, experiments with drugs and douses herself with radiation to ensure that she prodcues infants grotesque enough to keep the turnstiles clicking... the result is a dark pre-Chuck Palahniuk masterpiece that is both shocking and heartfelt...

Many died. Many burned.
Babes snuffed to grease smears in the blacked arms of their charcoaled mothers.
Sudden switches, lean and brittle, had started as dancing children only seconds before.
All the dark, gaping corpses, in their fire-frenzy ballet, flexed and danced in the dreams of the finders.
The fire-fighters and ambulance shriekers who had worked arson-struck tenements
and the crashes of jumbo jets puked and retreated, or quit their jobs to grow lettuce, but still dreamed,
after wading the ashes of Binewski's Carnival Fabulon.

Crash Bang Wallop

For four more days you can catch an extraordinary exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in Kings Cross. A host of influential and controversial modern artists have work on display that forms an homage to JG Ballard's Crash.
Some of the work forms obvious links, whilst some is on display to provide a reference, or a feeling of the environment at the time... despite not always being completely cohesive, or as visually/sexually powerful as the (Cronenberg's) film, some of the pieces and the concept make it well worth seeing. Andy Warhol, Helmut Newton etc all have work on display, and the Chapman Brothers did limited edition of the book which is available to buy...

'The Informers' Trailer Is A Bit Cloak And Dagger, And More Bret Easton Ellis News

There's something a bit funny going on with 'The Informers', the latest Bret Easton Ellis book to be made into a film. Following in the footsteps of the brilliant 'American Psycho', 'The Rules of Attraction' and the less than brilliant 'Less Than Zero', a bit of digging finds that most trailers have been taken offline, and coverage is very thin on the ground, especially for a film with a cast this good (Kim Basinger, Billy Bob Thornton, Mickey Rourke, Winona Ryder, Rhys Ifans etc and the interesting Amber Heard).

The trailer looks slick, and spot on for how I imagine an Easton Ellis social scene. Whilst both 'American Psycho' and 'The Rules of Attraction' perfectly depicted their settings, I don't think that until this point any film has truly captured the nihilistic decadence of his soul-less-rich-kid work, be it an Easton Ellis work or otherwise.

In further Easton Ellis news, there was an interesting interview, albeit a bit raw, over at Suicide Girls of all places, where apparently he has a bit of a fanbase. Furthermore, it looks as though 'Less Than Zero' is set for a remake, by Tarantino no less... this could be interesting.