Tag: nyc

The Fantastic World of Virgil Finlay

The Humble Fabulist3 Comments

In five scratchboard illustrations and one gouache.

In his 35-year career, Virgil Finlay produced over 2,600 illustrations, a remarkable achievement considering his labor-intensive and time-consuming drawing style.

”Instead of the typical pen and ink or carbon pencil drawings produced by most pulp illustrators, Finlay used a unique technique combining scratchboard—in which a clay-covered board is coated with black ink and the artist scratches away white lines from the black using a sharp blade—with intricate pen cross-hatching and an astonishingly painstaking method of creating tones called stipple.

Contrasted with hatching, or crossed lines, stippling is a time-consuming process in which tones are created with hundreds of tiny individual dots, carefully placed and dripped off the end of an ultra-fine dip pen, one dot at time.” [source]Face in the Abyss
Gouache on illustration board
Appeared on the cover of Famous Fantastic Mysteries magazine for ”Face in the Abyss” by A. Merritt, Frank A. Munsey Co., October 1940

”He came out of his coma. We left a sketch pad and pencils by the bed. He did a drawing, he went back into the coma, and died.”– Lail Finlay, Virgil Finlay’s daughter

Three Against the Stars
Scratchboard, pen and ink
Interior illustration in Fantastic Novels Magazine for ”Three Against the Stars”, by Eric North, New Publications, Inc., May 1950

The Lovers
Scratchboard, pen and ink
Appeared in Startling Stories magazine for ”The Lovers” by Philip José Farmer, Better Publications, August 1952

For the first time in science fiction history an Earth man and an alien woman have a sexual love affair in Philip José Farmer’s ”The Lovers”. This was quite groundbreaking yet controversial in 1950s American pop culture; however, it would seem quite tame compared to today’s science fiction books and films.

Woman reclining in lunar landscape, c. 1955
Scratchboard, pen and ink

Conquest of the Moon Pool
Scratchboard, pen and ink
Interior illustration in Fantastic Novels magazine for ”Conquest of the Moon Pool” by A. Merritt, New Publications, September 1948

From ”Conquest of the Moon Pool”:
”… and suddenly there before us stood two figures! One was a girl – a girl whose eyes were golden… whose softly curved lips were red as the royal coral and whose golden-brown hair reached to her knees! And the second was a gigantic frog – a woman frog… six feet high if an inch and with one webbed paw of its short, powerfully muscled forelegs resting upon the white should of the golden-eyed girl!”

Lur the Witch Woman with Her Consorts, Dwellers in the Mirage
Scratchboard, pen and ink
Appeared on the cover of Fantastic Novels for ”Dwellers in the Mirage”, written by A. Merritt, Frank A. Munsey Co., NY, April 1941

”Dwellers in the Mirage” introduction:
”The strangest adventure any man had encountered since time began faced Leif Langdon when he tumbled through that Alaskan mirage into a lost world.”

Adenturer Leif Langdon stumbles upon an uncommonly warm, hidden Arctic valley where he finds and falls in love with Evalie. Also in this valley are the Little People – elfin warriors fighting against Lur the Witch Woman and her demon riders who raid the Little People’s land for sacrifices to Kraken, their dark lord. Tapping into buried memories of another lifetime, Langdon realizes he had a past life as Kraken and as Lur’s lover. So begins Langdon’s inner struggle between his two selves.

All artwork by Virgil Finlay (1914 – 1971), photographed at the Society of Illustrators

August 15th, 2017

 

A resolution?

The Humble Fabulist4 Comments

In case not very clear, the sign says: You are looking at 45,485 pounds of added sugar. This is the amount of added sugar children in the U.S. consume every 5 minutes.

But adults, too, are avid sugar consumers. Worst of all, we have little or no choice. After more than two years in the U.S. I still find it next to impossible to buy basic foods such as bread or cereal that do not contain some type of added sugar. Even foods labeled as ”healthy” contain cane sugar or maple syrup; sometimes sugar is disguised as cane syrup, which is nothing else than cane juice boiled down to a syrup, i.e. sugar.

By the way, the snack bars from the company responsible for this campaign? They contain 5g of added sugar.

Photos from August 22nd, 2017 – yet, always relevant.

Zender’s Winterreise || Jazz @ Lincoln

The Humble FabulistLeave a comment

It was August but Winterreise was about to take us on a journey back in time, through Hans Zender’s Dark Mirror; I had a feeling it would be dark and cool, just what one needs in August in the City – and I was right.

”Schubert’s Winterreise is a work shockingly ahead of its time, with a strongly expressionist flavor and prescient hints at the progress of music into the 20th century. Zender’s interpretation brings out and clarifies these extraordinary aspects and creates sonic associations for a modern audience. The rich cabaret feel draws on elements already there, and allows for a reflection on the piece itself—it is a work of art about a work of art.” (source)

Before looking into ”The Dark Mirror”, we lingered around the Ertegun Jazz Hall Of Fame, a space honouring the life and work of jazz legends with photos of the men and women who dedicated their lives to jazz, and a video series on the media wall, designed and animated by Nate Milton. Walking by, it occurred to me that I have yet to discover New York’s jazz scene. Now, a year-and-a-half later, I’m still in the dark and not sure where to start. If you have a recommendation, please do drop me a line in the comments – I would love to find out! 

Jazz at Lincoln Center

August 12th, 2017

Puppy’s First Birthday

The Humble FabulistLeave a comment

*Recent Resident Posting* (September 2018) on the bulletin board of my building’s website:

Title: Puppy’s First Birthday Party Meet-up

Hi guys! My chihuahua is turning one and I’m throwing her a party this Saturday 9/22 at 11am in Washington Square Park! Check out the attached facebook event link. It would be awesome to see some familiar faces there and just let our dogs have fun! Please text me with any questions (number deleted). RSVP on Facebook or text me so I know how many party favors to bring. 🙂

**

Photos from a walk in Hell’s Kitchen. It was not the same man but it could well have been…

August 12th, 2017

Take me to Church*

The Humble Fabulist3 Comments

The City may be celebrating the most wonderful time of the year but December usually finds me exhausted, ready for hibernation, in absence of which a fair amount of introspection will have to do. One more year has just been added into my bag of experiences and, amazing it has been, I feel the weight. It was perhaps a cosmic coincidence or I was just subconsciously seeking to get into the ”Christmas Spirit” rather than sinking deeper into my ”Christmas Blues” that brought me to church not once, but three times this month. As an atheist, church is not part of my usual routine, but a sequence of seemingly unrelated events managed to get me there – thrice.  Emphasis added on ”seemingly”, because all three events had something in common: music & song. Ethereal, transcendent, lyrical, divine song.

First, it was Ambient Church:

Group Immersions into modern contemplative and devotional music through site-specific audio and visual performance // is their Facebook statement and I couldn’t describe it better.

In celebration of 25 years of American ambient label Kranky, this nomadic audiovisual experience traveled to four cities – Portland, Los Angeles and Chicago, before coming to St. Ann & the Holy Trinity  (est.1847) in Brooklyn Heights, on December 15th. The headliner was progressive power trio of Brooklyn Forma but my personal luminary of the night was Christina Vantzou, a Kansas City, Missouri born composer and filmmaker of Greek descent based (of all places) in Brussels, Belgium.

You can listen to Christina’s dreamy, abstract music on her website and her latest work, album No. 4 here.

Then, on December 22nd, came Paul Winter’s 39th Annual Winter Solstice Celebration, a multi-media event featuring musicians, vocalists and the 25 dancers and drummers of the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre. This annual phantasmagoria, which I’ve only just discovered, aims to offer a contemporary take on ancient solstice rituals, when people gathered together on the longest night of the year to welcome the return of the sun and the birth of the new year. The mere fact that it takes place in the largest cathedral in the world, makes it an unforgettable experience, albeit a bit overwhelming, in my view. Except for the howling – that was awesome. Click on the video below, to listen.

Finally, on Christmas eve, there was caroling in Gramercy Park. Where, once a year for a single hour, the exclusive park normally open to a small circle of key holders only, welcomes everyone with open doors and Christmas Carols sang by the choir of Calvary-St. George’s Church, a choir so melodic we had to follow them to their next round at the Christmas Eve Service, inside the church. I thought we would stay for a couple of songs, then leave quietly. Instead, we stayed for the whole service in what became one of the most uplifting experiences we could possibly hope for, this Christmas. Which goes to demonstrate that when religion is inclusive rather than imposing, and the church keeps up to date and young, it can only gain – if not devotees, at least a couple of new friends. 

*Title borrowed from Hozier’s homonym song.

Christmas Eve 2018

And the winner is…

The Humble FabulistLeave a comment

(Unsurprisingly) Bergdorf Goodman!

There should be an ”International Awards for Shop Xmas Windows” ceremony somewhere, if only to affirm that outdoing this B&G extravaganza is practically impossible. Except of course by B&G, who are somehow outdoing themselves every time! Hard to believe one can actually buy some of these items inside (I could probably afford a small box of macarons from Ladurée)…

Manhattan, 5th Avenue

December 9th, 2017