An amazing interview with Charles Burns on his works, including Black Hole: … “So you write in text at first? Primarily, yeah. There are usually a few little visual notes here and there, but it’s mainly just text. I compile all my ideas and do my best not to censor myself in any way. I […]
Read More →Archive for November, 2012
Kachina cameo
I’m still thinking about the appearance of Native American kachina dolls late in Black Hole. This morning I ventured a few thoughts off the cuff about how they invoke several relevant issues: ritual, rites of passage, community, parent/child relations, and perhaps a healing counterpoint to the fragmented Kewpie dolls strung up in the trees around […]
Read More →Black Hole yearbook redux
Black Hole yearbook photos recreated by photographer Max Oppenheim and prosthetic artist Bill Turpin (via The Operators)
Read More →Black Hole on Film…and in sound
Here is a short film version of Black Hole by Director Rupert Sanders. Following our discussion in class today, I think we could talk about the way the short film tackles the page in the graphic novel with the juxtaposed images of the frog being dissected, the cut on Chris’ foot, Chris’ skin coming apart […]
Read More →flashbacks from portugal
It turns out that there is a sequel to Saramago’s “Blindness” – and it’s called, guess what, “Seeing:” Seeing is a story set in the same country featured in Blindness and begins with a parliamentary election in which the majority of the populace casts blank ballots. The story revolves around the struggles of the government and its […]
Read More →Nothingness
Charles Burns combines high school lifestyle and the idea of epidemic in his graphic novel Black Hole by narrating the experiences of several teenagers. Within the context of adolescence, Burns illustrates the spreading of “The Bug”, which is transmitted through sex. Black Hole inevitably draws a parallel between sex and intoxication — whether alcohol, LSD […]
Read More →Festival of Holi
Relative to Animal’s experience at Laxmi Talkis (238): More here. Add this to Animal’s ecumenical taste for ritual?
Read More →Ashura Mubarak!
The firewalking ritual occurs on the Day of Ashura, a Sh’ia celebration. The Sh’ia population in India is a minority group, with approximately 50 million followers and is a day of mourning for the martyrdom of Hussain Ibn Ali (credits to Wikipedia). Here are some images of Sh’ia Muslims marking the occasion around the world, the images […]
Read More →Animal: The musical
“Tumse achha kaun haii,” from Janwar (1965). Anything to be made of this? Full film here.
Read More →Bhopal – the real-life Khaufpur
December 3rd 1984: Hundreds die in Bhopal chemical accident Hundreds of people have died from the effects of toxic gases which leaked from a chemical factory near the central Indian city of Bhopal. The accident happened in the early hours of this morning at the American-owned Union Carbide Pesticide Plant three miles (4.8 km) from […]
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