baciami, giuda
4/18/2005 @ 6:07 pm Comments (3)“phineas poe is gonna be huge in Italy… they love that noir shit.”
These words were solemnly discharged by a young Trent Reznor apostle with eyes invisible behind flight goggles, at a reading in London, sumer 1999, marking the release of kiss me, judas by penguin UK… it had come up during the Q&A, a stray bullet reference to the fact that I had lived in Milan as a kid. I remember it was ‘99 because earlier that summer the U.S. national soccer team was stomped in the early rounds of the World Cup by Iraq, which delighted my British editor no end. I had no reason to doubt the goggle kid’s theory. after all, when American noir went on life support at home in the 1950s, it was embraced in Italy and France with a hunger that approached rapture. why else do you suppose Patricia Highsmith fled?
six years later, and Phineas is at long last walking around Italy as he should be, bleeding to death and trying to kick narcotics, but properly housed by a superfly new publisher, marsilio black, who will release the Italian KMJ, aka baciami, Giuda on .4.21.05 with a smoking new cover design.. Marsilio also hooked me up with an editor, Jacopo de Michelis, who proved to be savvy, fearless and cool and who hatched the idea of signing up bonsai ninjas to cook up a video short, or booktrailer, to give Phineas his due.. and the result is jaw dropping dead sexy. a bootleg version of the ninjas’ trailer went around a few weeks back, so a few of you have seen it already. those of you who have not, have a taste. you won’t regret it. and take a look at the other videos at the bonsai ninja homepage.. They made one for Neal Gaiman’s nasty and terrifying children’s book, Coraline, that puts the jelly in your doughnut, trust me.
bonsai,
-wcb
The Contortionist, among us
4/11/2005 @ 9:51 pm Comments (9)go crazy, people. Craig Clevenger is creeping around the ether again, and looking like a god after a long nap. this site is a beautiful piece of work, the sort of thing for which the phrase “Jesus wept,” was coined. Roland has purely outdone himself, so if you bump into him in the Velvet, give him due praise. same again for Dennis and Kareem, Mirka and Sparq.
the velvet reconstruction is complete.
go,
-wcb