music and tales
“Rubin, in some way that no one quite understands, is a master, a teacher, what the Japanese call a sensei. What he’s the master of, really, is garbage, kipple, refuse, the sea of cast off goods our century floats on. Gomi […]
In our perusement of culture from Weimar era Germany, in particular its ground breaking films, we finally arrive at one of the most astonishingly visionary achievements in film history, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Directed by Robert Wein, it predates the other […]
Max Raabe is a modern day crooner, who sings 20s era songs and stylings (with some modern day songs reworked into a 20s sound). His voice and mannerisms are… perfect. They are exactly what you hear in those old records […]
SOooooooo, Terry Gilliam is doing a steampunk animated movie called 1884: Yesterday’s Future. I’m not sure why nobody told me because Terry Gilliam is an anagram in ancient sanskrit for “fucking awesome”. The man truly behind the movie is digital animation […]
Wtf is this? I don’t know. It’s kind of steampunky. It’s art filmly. It’s slow and meditative and strangely creepy. It’s also kind of awesome. Undoubtedly, all will cease after the deep silence. Only will remain thy daughters, through the […]
As part of our little affair with atompunk era architecture (for those just joining us, atompunk refers to the period of the 1950s to the 1970s. Not simply that era, but that era’s vision of the future is what is Atompunk) it would […]
Well THIS is interesting. Today we feature neo-cabaret artists Mister Joe Black, whose brand of dark, dolly-watching-you-while-you-sleep-and-grinning kind of cabaret is filled with personality, wit, and weirdness. “The neo-vaudevillian, the real life Disney villain, the gin-addled courtesan, the anti-christ of […]
During the 1920s and 30s, one of the most famous screen detectives, featured in numerous serials and feature films, was Charlie Chan. He was created by writer Earl Derr Biggers as an Asian detective based in Honolulu in an attempt to throw a […]
This post was originally going to be about Charlie Chan, but before we get to that famous character of Dieselpunk era serials, i figured it might be interesting if we start with the even more famous Fu Manchu, for whom Charlie Chan […]
1890 – 1947 Another one of the great old time con men was “Count” (yeah right) Victor Lustig. He is most famous for selling the Eiffel Tower, but his cons are many, notorious, and the famous 10 Commandments for Con Men is attributed to […]