Gone Baby Gone

I'm having a little internet break for a few days. While I'm away, I expect everyone to watch The Piano because it's an excellent film. Or you can just watch this:



Either way = life improved.

le Café de l'Enfer

[Photograph by Eugène Atget. Via]

I stumbled across images of this incredible building recently, and just had to find out more.

According to the National Geographic archive:

"A hot spot called Hell's Café lured 19th-century Parisians to the city's Montmartre neighborhood—like the Marais—on the Right Bank of the Seine. With plaster lost souls writhing on its walls and a bug-eyed devil's head for a front door, le Café de l'Enfer may have been one of the world's first theme restaurants. According to one 1899 visitor, the café's doorman—in a Satan suit—welcomed diners with the greeting, "Enter and be damned!" Hell's waiters also dressed as devils. An order for three black coffees spiked with cognac was shrieked back to the kitchen as: "Three seething bumpers of molten sins, with a dash of brimstone intensifier!""

Both the interior and exterior walls were covered in the twisting bodies of the damned. I love the graphic, textured nature of these surfaces. It reminds me of the 'hallway of hands' motif I have been obsessing over in the last few posts, but taking it to the next level.

[Photograph by H. C. Ellis. Via]

[Via]

Even the menu was sinister, outlining its "diabolical attractions" with flare:

[Via]

The giant fanged doorway-mouth also reminds me of the entrance to the Tim Burton exhibit I visited last year.

[Via]

[Via]

Walking through those sharp teeth was so exciting. I wish Hell's Cafe was still around.

You can find more pics of the hellish hotspot here, including the 'heaven' cafe some joker set up next door.

All In The Mind

Now that I'm in the twilight months of PhD writing, people often ask "what will you do after you've submitted?" This is precisely where my mind goes in those moments:





...


P.S. The 'hallway of hands' featured in this skit is just like the one in VAST's Pretty When You Cry video. Apparently both are based on scenes from Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965), which looks quite amazing:





How have I never seen this film? This travesty must be rectified at once.

See Monsters

I like them...

[Pierre Denys de Montfort. Colossal Octopus (1810). Via]

[Andrea Mantegna. Battle of Two Sea Monsters (1475). Via]

[Bror Anders Wikstrom. New Orleans Mardi Gras: Krewe of Proteus float design (1907). Via]

[Johann Zahn. Mythical Satyrus Marinus (1696). Via]

[Olaus Magnus. The mythical island of Thule. Detail from the Carta Marina (1539). Via]

[Albrecht Dürer. The Sea Monster (1498). Via]

[Jean-Marc Côté. Sea Monster (1899). Via]

Also, this guy:

[Conrad Gesner. Sea Monk (1575). Via]

Beware the spiny sea monk and his prickly high fives.

Now I Can See

I found another interesting music video today. Catchy and unsettling - my favourite kind.





I strongly suspect the inspiration for this came from Lucy McRae's work:



It looks even better in action. I posted about her here if you would like to see more.