#John Boileau

[bargainsleuthbooks]

Book Reviews: ARC Review Edition #BookReview #NetGalley #Edelweiss #NewBooks

I've been so busy on my off days that I've had little time to blog! I'm still doing plenty of reading, though, so here's a round-up of some books being released this month! #Bookreview #bookstagram #newbooks #netgalley #edelweiss #ARCreview

If you follow Bargain Sleuth Book Reviews, then you know that late last year I got burnt out of all reading, writing, and blogging about books. I’ve slowly gotten back into it, but in order to make this blog not be such a chore and return it back into a fun hobby, I’ve not reviewed every single book I’ve consumed this year here; I have kept up with at least a paragraph on Goodreads and hope to…

[randomrichards]

BODY PARTS (1991):

Post car accident

Man’s arm replaced with killer’s

Evil in the flesh?

[olympic-paris]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

September 8

1157 – Richard The Lion Heart, or Cœur de Lion, King of England, born (d.1199); Known to most from Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe," as a young man Richard fell in love with the king of France, Philip II. Richard was an educated man who composed poetry, writing in French and Limousin. He was said to be very attractive; his hair was between red and blond, and he was light-eyed with a pale complexion. He was apparently of above average height, but as his remains have been lost since at least the French Revolution, his exact height is unknown.

Boswell's translation of King Henry II's journal records that Richard (then the Duke of Aquitaine) "remained with Philip, the king of France, who so honored him for so long that they ate every day at the same table and from the same dish, and at night their beds did not separate them. And the king of France loved him as his own soul; and they loved each other so much that the king of England was absolutely astonished at the passionate love between them and marveled at it."

Before 1948, no historian appears to have clearly affirmed that Richard was homosexual. Historian Jean Flori, however, has analysed the work of contemporary historians, and reported that they quite generally accepted that Richard was homosexual. However, not all historians agree regarding Richard's sexuality; but Flori analyzed the available contemporaneous evidence in great detail, and concluded that Richard's two public confessions and penitences (in 1191 and 1195) must have referred to the "sin of sodomy". There are contemporaneous accounts of Richard's relations with women, and Richard acknowledged one illegitimate son, Philip of Cognac. Flori thus concludes that Richard was probably bisexual, but he does agree that the contemporaneous accounts do not support the allegation that Richard had a homosexual relation with King Philip II of France.

The historian John Gillingham has suggested that theories that Richard was homosexual probably stemmed from an official record announcing that, as a symbol of unity between the two countries, the kings of France and England had slept overnight in the same bed. He expressed the view that this was "an accepted political act, nothing sexual about it; ... a bit like a modern-day photo opportunity."

Richard did later marry somewhat unenthusiastically. Upon death his widow had to sue the pope for recognition as widow, as Richard hadn't bothered to make his marriage official.

1504 – Michelangelo's David is unveiled in Florence.

1621 – Louis II De Bourbon, Prince De Condé, French General, born; Known as "the Great Condé," this greatest of French generals was an intimate of Moliere, Racine, Boileau, and La Bruyère. He also had the misfortune to be acquainted with "Madame"—the gossipy wife of Philip, duc d'Orleans—who spread the word about Conde's amours with his own sex.

Condé, a clever gent, went to great pains to establish a reputation as a great womanizer, but between the sharp tonge of Madame and the word of the well-known courtesan, Ninon de Lenclos, who was in a position to know, Condé fooled no one with his boasts.

1873 – Alfred Jarry (d.1907) was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side. Best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896), which is often cited as a forerunner to the theatre of the absurd, Jarry wrote in a variety of genres and styles. He wrote plays, novels, poetry, essays and speculative journalism. His texts present some pioneering work in the field of absurdist literature.

A precociously brilliant student, Jarry enthralled his classmates with a gift for pranks and troublemaking. At the lycée in Rennes when he was 15, he led of a group of boys who devoted much time and energy to poking fun at their well-meaning, obese and incompetent physics teacher, a man named Hébert. Jarry and a classmate wrote a play they called Les Polonais and performed it with marionettes in the home of one of their friends. The main character, Père Heb, was a blunderer with a huge belly; three teeth (one of stone, one of iron, and one of wood); a single, retractable ear; and a misshapen body. In Jarry's later work Ubu Roi, Père Heb would develop into Ubu, one of the most monstrous and astonishing characters in French literature.

At 17 Jarry passed his baccalauréat and moved to Paris to prepare for admission to the École Normale Supérieure. Though he was not admitted, he soon gained attention for his original poems and prose-poems. A collection of his work, Les minutes de sable mémorial, was published in 1893. That same year, both his parents died, leaving him a small inheritance which he quickly spent.

Jarry had meantime discovered the pleasures of alcohol, which he called 'my sacred herb' or, when referring to absinthe, the 'green goddess'. A story is told that he once painted his face green and rode through town on his bicycle in its honour (and possibly under its influence).

Drafted into the army in 1894, his gift for turning notions upside down defeated attempts to instill military discipline. The sight of the small man in a uniform much too large for his less than 5-foot frame—the army did not issue uniforms small enough—was so disruptively funny that he was excused from parades and marching drills. Eventually the army discharged him for medical reasons. His military experience eventually inspired the novel, Days and Nights.

Jarry returned to Paris and applied himself to drinking, writing, and the company of friends who appreciated his witty, sweet-tempered, and unpredictable conversation. This period is marked by his intense involvement with Remy de Gourmont in the publication of L'Ymagier, a luxuriously produced 'art' magazine devoted to the symbolic analysis of medieval and popular prints. Symbolism as an art movement was in full swing at this time and L'Ymagier provided a nexus for many of its key contributors.

The spring of 1896 saw the publication, in Paul Fort's review Le Livre d'art, of Jarry's 5-act play Ubu Roi — the rewritten and expanded Les Polonais of his school days. Ubu Roi's savage humour and monstrous absurdity, unlike anything thus far performed in French theatre, seemed unlikely to ever actually be performed on stage. However, impetuous theater director Aurélien-Marie Lugné-Poe took the risk, producing the play at his Théâtre de l'Oeuvre.

On opening night (December 10, 1896), with traditionalists and the avant-garde in the audience, King Ubu stepped forward and intoned the opening word, 'Merdre!' (Shit!!!). A quarter of an hour of pandemonium ensued: outraged cries, booing, and whistling by the offended parties, countered by cheers and applause by the more forward-thinking contingent. Such interruptions continued through the evening. At the time, only the dress rehearsal and opening night performance were held, and the play was not revived until 1907.

The play brought fame to the 23-year-old Jarry, and he immersed himself in the fiction he had created. From then on, Jarry would always speak in Ubu's style. He adopted Ubu's ridiculous and pedantic figures of speech; for example, he referred to himself using the royal we, and called the wind 'that which blows' and the bicycle he rode everywhere 'that which rolls'.

Living in worsening poverty, neglecting his health, and drinking excessively, Jarry went on to write what is often cited as the first cyborg sex novel, The Supermale.

Unpublished until after his death, his fiction Exploits and Opinions of Dr Faustroll, pataphysician (Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien) describes the exploits and teachings of a sort of antiphilosopher who, born at age 63, travels through a hallucinatory Paris in a sieve and subscribes to the tenets of 'pataphysics'. In 'pataphysics', every event in the universe is accepted as an extraordinary event.

In his final years, he was a legendary and heroic figure to some of the young writers and artists in Paris. After his death, Pablo Picasso, fascinated with Jarry, acquired his pistol and wore it on his nocturnal expeditions in Paris, and later bought many of his manuscripts as well as executing a fine drawing of him.

Jarry lived in his 'pataphysical' world until his death in Paris on November 1, 1907 of tuberculosis, aggravated by drug and alcohol use. It is recorded that his last request was for a toothpick.

1886 – Siegfried Sassoon CBE MC (d.1967) was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a pointless war. He later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston Trilogy".

Siegfried Sassoon was born and grew up in a neo-gothic mansion in Kent, to a Jewish father and an Anglo-Catholic mother. There was no German ancestry in Siegfried's family; his mother named him Siegfried because of her love of Wagner's operas. His father died when he Sassoon was 9 years old.

Sassoon was attended Clare College, Cambridge, where from 1905 to 1907 he read history. He went down from Cambridge without a degree and spent the next few years hunting, playing cricket and writing verse: some he published privately. Since his father had been disinherited from the Sassoon fortune for marrying a non-Jew, Siegfried had only a small private fortune that allowed him to live modestly without having to earn a living.

Motivated by patriotism, Sassoon joined the British Army at the threat of World War I , and was in service with the Sussex Yeomanry on the day the United Kingdom declared war (4 August 1914). He was commissioned into 3rd Battalion (Special Reserve), Royal Welch Fusiliers as a second lieutenant on 1915, and in November was sent to the 1st Battalion in France. During the French campaign, he met Robert Graves and they became close friends. The intensity of their early relationship is demonstrated in Graves's collection Fairies and Fusiliers (1917), which contains many poems celebrating their friendship. Sassoon himself remarked upon a "heavy sexual element" within it.

United by their poetic vocation, they often read and discussed one another's work. Though this did not have much perceptible influence on Graves's poetry, Sassoon's views on what may be called 'gritty realism' profoundly affected Sassoon's concept of what constituted poetry. He soon became horrified by the realities of war, and the tone of his writing changed completely: where his early poems exhibit a Romantic, dilettantish sweetness, his war poetry moves to an increasingly discordant music, intended to convey the ugly truths of the trenches to an audience hitherto lulled by patriotic propaganda. Details such as rotting corpses, mangled limbs, filth, cowardice and suicide are all trademarks of his work at this time, and this philosophy of 'no truth unfitting' had a significant effect on the movement towards Modernist poetry.

Sassoon's periods of duty on the Western Front were marked by exceptionally brave actions, including the single-handed, but vainglorious, capture of a German trench in the Hindenburg Line. Armed with grenades he scattered 60 German soldiers. Sassoon's bravery was inspiring to the extent that soldiers of his company said that they felt confident only when they were accompanied by him. He often went out on night-raids and bombing patrols and demonstrated ruthless efficiency as a company commander. Deepening depression at the horror and misery the soldiers were forced to endure produced in Sassoon a paradoxically manic courage, and he was nicknamed "Mad Jack" by his men for his near-suicidal exploits. On 27 July 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross.

Despite his decoration and reputation, he decided in 1917 to make a stand against the conduct of the war. One of the reasons for his violent anti-war feeling was the death of his friend, David Cuthbert Thomas. He would spend years trying to overcome his grief. At the end of a spell of convalescent leave, Sassoon declined to return to duty; instead, encouraged by pacifist friends such as Bertrand Russell, he sent a letter to his commanding officer, titled Finished with the War: A Soldier's Declaration. Forwarded to the press and read out in Parliament by a sympathetic MP, the letter was seen by some as treasonous ("I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority") or at best condemnatory of the war government's motives ("I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest"). Rather than court-martial Sassoon, the Under-Secretary of State for War, Ian Macpherson decided that he was unfit for service and had him sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh, where he was officially treated for neurasthenia ("shell shock"). Before declining to return to active service he had thrown the ribbon from his Military Cross into the river Mersey.

At Craiglockhart, Sassoon met Wilfred Owen, a fellow poet who would eventually exceed him in fame. It was thanks to Sassoon that Owen persevered in his ambition to write better poetry. A manuscript copy of Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth containing Sassoon's handwritten amendments survives as testimony to the extent of his influence and is currently on display at London's Imperial War Museum. To all intents and purposes, Sassoon became to Owen "Keats and Christ and Elijah"; surviving documents demonstrate clearly the depth of Owen's love and admiration for him. Both men returned to active service in France, but Owen was killed in 1918.

The war had brought Sassoon into contact with men from less advantaged backgrounds, and he had developed socialist sympathies. Having lived for a period at Oxford, where he spent more time visiting literary friends than studying, he dabbled briefly in the politics of the Labour movement, and in 1919 took up a post as literary editor of the socialist Daily Herald. Sassoon later embarked on a lecture tour of the USA, as well as travelling in Europe and throughout Britain.

Meanwhile, he was beginning to express his homosexuality more openly, embarking on an affair with artist Gabriel Atkin, to whom he had been introduced by mutual friends. During his US tour, he met a young actor who treated him callously. Nevertheless, he was adored by female audiences.

Sassoon, having matured greatly as a result of his military service, continued to seek emotional fulfilment, initially in a succession of love affairs with men, including the actor Ivor Novello; Novello's former lover, the actor Glen Byam Shaw; German aristocrat Prince Philipp of Hesse; the writer Beverley Nichols; and an effete aristocrat, the Hon. Stephen Tennant. Only the last of these made a permanent impression, though Shaw remained his close friend throughout his life.

In September 1931, Sassoon rented and began to live at Fitz House, Teffont Magna, Wiltshire. In December 1933, to many people's surprise, he married Hester Gatty, who was many years his junior; this led to the birth of a child, something which he had long craved. This child, their only child, George (1936-2006) was adored by Siegfried, who wrote several poems addressed to him.

However, the marriage broke down after World War II, Sassoon apparently unable to find a compromise between the solitude he enjoyed and the companionship he craved.

Separated from his wife in 1945, Sassoon lived in seclusion at Heytesbury in Wiltshire, although he maintained contact with a circle which included E. M. Forster and J. R. Ackerley. One of his closest friends was the young cricketer Dennis Silk. Seigfried Sassoon died one week before his 81st birthday in 1967 of stomach cancer.

1975 – Gays In The Military: U.S. Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time Magazine with the headline (printed in bold letters) "I Am A Homosexual." He is later given a general discharge. Matlovich, who received a purple heart and a bronze star, for bravery, was one of the first high profile members of the U.S. military to come out of the closet and challenge the ban on Gays serving. Matlovich is also famous for his statement, which is also the epitaph on his gravestone in Washington, DC's Congressional Cemetery, "When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."

[byneddiedingo]

Lindsay Duncan, Jeff Fahey, and Kim Delaney in Body Parts (Eric Red, 1991)

Cast: Jeff Fahey, Lindsay Duncan, Kim Delaney, Zakes Mokae, Brad Dourif, John Walsh, Paul Ben-Victor, Peter Murnik. Screenplay: Patricia Herskovic, Joyce Taylor, Eric Red, Norman Snider, based on a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Cinematography: Theo van de Sande. Production design: Bill Brodie. Editing: Anthony Redman. Music: Loek Dikker. 

How can a movie with a car chase, a fight in a barroom, and an abundance of gore turn out so dull? Body Parts is based on an old trope, that of severed members taking on a life of their own. Adaptations of W.W. Jacobs's 1902 story "The Monkey's Paw" are so numerous they have a Wikipedia page of their own and Maurice Renard's 1920 novel Les Mains d'Orlac, about a concert pianist who receives the transplanted hands of a murderer, has been filmed several times, including Robert Wiene's 1924 silent The Hands of Orlac and Karl Freund's 1935 Mad Love, starring Peter Lorre. The many adaptations of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein also play on the notion of reanimated body parts. But it's not that the idea behind Eric Red's movie has been done to death, so to speak, it's that Red and the various screenwriters who worked on the movie find so little new and interesting to do with it. It's adapted from a 1965 novel, Choice Cuts, by the writing team known as Boileau-Narcejac, who provided the source material for some much better movies: Diabolique (aka Les Diaboliques, Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955) and Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958). The acting isn't bad. As Bill Chrushank, a psychiatrist who receives the arm of a murderer after losing his own in an auto accident, Jeff Fahey does a solid job of suggesting the ways the transplant brings out the worst in what may have been his own latent tendencies to violence. Lindsay Duncan plays the surgeon who does the transplant as a cold-blooded scientist with just a touch of hauteur that turns malevolent when her breakthrough technique is threatened. Brad Dourif overacts a little as the artist who receives the other arm and finds that it actually feeds his imagination and produces darkly disturbing paintings that sell. And Kim Delaney does what she can with the role of Chrushank's wife, who bears the brunt of his emotional transformation. But Red's direction never builds suspense, giving us time to anticipate the shocks we expect the material to provide. There's also a completely unearned "happy ending" that saps any lingering tension from what has gone before. 

[mergist]

The English word "personification" did not exist prior to the late seventeenth century. It derives from the French verb personnifier which Boileau coined in his Eleventh Reflection on Longinus (Haworth 43). Boileau used the neologism to exonerate Racine from the charge that the playwright was unappropriately lurid in Theramene's recapitulation of Hyppolyte's death scene at the close of Phedre (v.vi). Boileau's defense was built on the fact that Racine was conveying a moment of sublime sentiment, and, more importantly, that the playwright did not "speak the words himself," using instead Theramene as a verbal mask or representative (Haworth 44). Boileau's inkhorn term conveyed no more than the earliest Hellenic conception of the trope as a means for any dramatic presentation of a speech. The new term proved so potent, apparently, that little more than a century later, another French thinker - Pierre Fontanier - saw the need taxonomically to separate la personnification from la prosopopee. Boileau's successful neolatin coinage, however, carried a new conceptual charge alien to the conservative connotations of the word "prosopopeia." According to Foucault and a number of other contemporary thinkers, the concept of the "person" is an invention of the late seventeenth century (Sexuality 17—47; Rorty 17—69; Zimbardo 1—14; Elliott 3—32; Ginsberg ch. 1). A human person was, for thinkers as varied as Montaigne, Descartes, John Locke, or Theophilus Gale, a rational being constituted by an entirely interior psychology, by a discrete, unique, and private consciousness that functioned as its own mechanism of self-definition and regulation. Boileau's engagement of the French word personne, or rather, of the Latin word persona, latched onto a concurrently evolving sense of what a human being was thought to be. As this book has shown, the figurally invented personages that result from personification are anything but realistic or modern "characters." The latter are fictive and simulational human beings, who, according to Rose Zimbardo, are native to literature only after the late seventeenth century and who possess an "internal arena" of soul and psyche (2). Indeed, Zimbardo holds that no fictional character, prior to the time of the English Restoration, was conceived of as an accurate simulacrum of psychological interiority. Such characters were mere ideational effigies. The seventeenth-century conceptual shift concerning personality and mind punctured old expectations of what literary character could be. The term "personification," by dint of its new connotational force, was therefore at odds with the older conception of "prosopopeia." Although both words etymologically mean "to make a face or mask," "prosopopeia" retained that sense of sheer literary game or artifice. "Personification," on the other hand, could have promoted a deep conceptual confusion about its status and value. Literature and drama became more and more taken up with the mimesis of actual human personality — a conceptual property promised but not delivered by the term "personification." This knot of lexical and conceptual confusion may be concomitant upon the trope's imminent historical decay as a serious and powerful means of poetic invention.

-James J. Paxson, The Poetics of Personification pages 171-172.

[blueiscoool]

Vertigo (1958), US Movie Poster

Artist: Saul Bass (1920-1996).

Unframed: 41 x 27 in. (104 x 69 cm). Framed: 47 1/2 x 33 in. (120.6 x 84 cm).

The image on this poster is the most recognisable and iconic of all Saul Bass's designs. This is one of the best examples of this poster to surface in many years, as the colour is exceptionally vivid. The majority of pieces that have surfaced are more orange in colour, and not as red as this piece.

This is the fourth and final time that James Stewart would work with Alfred Hitchcock, in one of his best loved thrillers. The mood of the film was greatly enhanced by the score, which was written by Bernard Herrmann.

Vertigo is a 1958 American film noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts (From Among the Dead) by Boileau-Narcejac. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor. The film stars James Stewart as former police detective John "Scottie" Ferguson, who has retired because an incident in the line of duty has caused him to develop acrophobia (an extreme fear of heights) and vertigo (a false sense of rotational movement). Scottie is hired by an acquaintance, Gavin Elster, as a private investigator to follow Gavin's wife Madeleine (Kim Novak), who is behaving strangely.

[agendaculturaldelima]

#ProyeccionDeVida

📣 Kino Cat / Cine Tulipán, presenta:

🎬 “VÉRTIGO. DE ENTRE LOS MUERTOs”

🔎 Género: Intriga / Drama Psicológico / Thriller / Película de Culto

⌛️ Duración: 120 minutos

✍️ Guion: Alec Coppel, Samuel Taylor y Maxwell Anderson

📕 Novela: Pierre Boileau y Thomas Narcejac

🎼 Música: Bernard Herrmann

📷 Fotografía: Robert Burks

💥 Argumento: Scottie Fergusson (James Stewart) es un detective de la policía de San Francisco que padece de vértigo. Cuando un compañero cae al vacío desde una cornisa mientras persiguen a un delincuente, Scottie decide retirarse. Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), un viejo amigo del colegio, lo contrata para un caso aparentemente muy simple: que vigile a su esposa Madeleine (Kim Novak), una bella mujer que está obsesionada con su pasado.

👥 Reparto: Kim Novak (Madeleine Elster, Judy Barton), James Stewart (John Ferguson), Barbara Bel Geddes (Midge Wood), Jack Ano, Tom Helmore (Gavin Elster), Ellen Corby (Administradora de Hotel McKittrick), Raymond Bailey (Médico de Scottie), Henry Jones (Juez de Instrucción), Lee Patrick (Dueño del Coche perdido por Madeleine), Konstantin Shayne (Pop Leibel) y Joanne Genthon (Carlotta Valdes)

📢 Dirección: Alfred Hitchcock

© Productoras: Paramount Pictures & Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions

🌎 País: Estados Unidos

📅 Año: 1958

📽 Proyección:

📆 Martes 30 de Julio

🕘 9:30pm. 

🐈‍ El Gato Tulipán (Bajada de Baños 350 – Barranco)

🚶‍♀️🚶‍♂️ Ingreso libre

[brooklynbutterflyarts]

Vertigo 1958 Movie Poster Framed Vertigo is a 1958 American film noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts (From Among the Dead) by Boileau-Narcejac. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor. The film stars James Stewart as former police detective John "Scottie" Ferguson, who has retired because an incident in the line of duty has caused him to develop acrophobia (an extreme fear of heights) and vertigo, a false sense of rotational movement. Scottie is hired by an acquaintance, Gavin Elster, as a private investigator to follow Gavin's wife Madeleine (Kim Novak), who is behaving strangely. Starring: James Stewart Kim Novak Barbara Bel Geddes Tom Helmore Henry Jones The film was shot on location in the city of San Francisco, California, Molding:Professional 1" Flat Top Black (solid-wood) 1.5 inch mat. Includes glass and metal wire for hanging on your wall. Print: Bonded & Dry-mounted Print on Foam Core. Perfectly flat and smooth finish High Resolution and Quality Full Color Poster Print The double mat adds depth giving the display a unique "looking through a window'' appearance. The poster print is bonded to foam core on a hot vacuum press. This bonding gives the print a perfect flat and smooth texture. This process also insures the print will never fold or fade with age or moisture. This wonderful display makes a thoughtful and original gift containing a classic vintage touch yet modern design, allowing it to fit alongside both modern and classic decor. BUY WITH CONFIDENCE. ALL OF MY DELICATE ITEMS ARE SHIPPED WITH A SPECIAL 3 LAYER PROTECTION SYSTEM.

[docrotten]

STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR (1940) – Episode 142 – Decades Of Horror: The Classic Era

“The only person who ever was kind to me was a woman. She’s dead now.” Wait. What? Join this episode’s Grue-Crew – Chad Hunt, Daphne Monary-Ernsdorff, Jeff Mohr, and guest host Dirk Rogers – as they witness the brilliance of Peter Lorre highlighted by the dark stylings of cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca in Stranger on the Third Floor (1940).

Decades of Horror: The Classic Era Episode 142 – Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! And click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

ANNOUNCEMENT Decades of Horror The Classic Era is partnering with THE CLASSIC SCI-FI MOVIE CHANNEL, THE CLASSIC HORROR MOVIE CHANNEL, and WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL Which all now include video episodes of The Classic Era! Available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, Online Website. Across All OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop. https://classicscifichannel.com/; https://classichorrorchannel.com/; https://wickedhorrortv.com/

An aspiring reporter is the key witness at the murder trial of a young man accused of cutting a café owner’s throat and is soon accused of a similar crime himself.

  Director: Boris Ingster

Writers: Frank Partos (story & screenplay by); Nathanael West (uncredited)

Music by: Roy Webb

Cinematography by: Nicholas Musuraca

Art Direction by: Van Nest Polglase

Wardrobe: Renié

Special Effects by: Vernon L. Walker (special effects)

Selected Cast:

Peter Lorre as The Stranger

John McGuire as Mike Ward

Margaret Tallichet as Jane

Charles Waldron as District Attorney

Elisha Cook Jr. as Joe Briggs

Charles Halton as Albert Meng

Ethel Griffies as Mrs. Kane, Michael’s landlady

Cliff Clark as Martin

Oscar O’Shea as The Judge

Alec Craig as Briggs’ Defense Attorney

Otto Hoffman as Police Surgeon

Emory Parnell as Grilling Detective in Dream Sequence (uncredited)

Herb Vigran as Reporter Who Wins Cardgame (uncredited)

Bobby Barber as Giuseppe (uncredited)

Stranger on the Third Floor inhabits the creepier side of, shall we say horror-adjacent, film noir. In fact, some experts argue that it is the first example of that dark genre, later to be labeled film noir. It’s a nightmare-influenced murder mystery featuring Peter Lorre chewing on all the scenery he can. Boris Ingster directs Stranger on the Third Floor with all the style that feels as if it could have been an early Val Lewton production. Yup, it’s Hollywood expressionism, RKO-style. This film is worth the watch, even if only for two 7-minute scenes: the nightmare sequence and the interaction between The Stranger (Lorre) and Jane (Margaret Tallichet).

If you have the urge to view this early example of noir filmmaking (or is it “proto-noir?”), and decide for yourself if it is truly horror-adjacent, Stranger on the Third Floor is, at the time of this writing, available to stream from archive.org or PPV from iTunes. There is also a Warner Brothers DVD available if physical media is your preference.

For more Peter Lorre goodness, check out these episodes of Decades of Horror: The Classic Era:

M (1931) – Episode 113

MAD LOVE (1935) – Episode 81

TALES OF TERROR (1962) – Episode 92

THE COMEDY OF TERRORS (1963) – Episode 75

Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era records a new episode every two weeks. Up next in their very flexible schedule, as chosen by Daphne, will be Diabolique (1940, Les Diaboliques), the French classic directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, based on a novel by Boileau-Narcejac.

Please let them know how they’re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans: leave them a message or leave a comment on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel, the site, or email the Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast hosts at feedback@gruesomemagazine.com

To each of you from each of them, “Thank you so much for listening!”

Check out this episode!

[marywoodartdept]

My Experience: The National Museum Of American Illustration

Kathryn, Illustration, shows us her favorite pieces from an exhibit she saw last summer in "My Experience: The National Museum Of American Illustration"

Hello everyone! In this week’s blog I am going to be talking about my experience I had last summer of going to the National Museum of American Illustration in Newport, Rhode Island. It has a lot of collections and exhibits that are filled with amazing, eye-catching art.

About

The National Museum of American Illustration was founded in 1998 by Judy Goffman Cutler and Laurence S. Cutler.…

[dozydawn]

Some favorite paperback covers.

He Walked in Her Sleep by Peter Cheyney. (1959) Artwork by Sandro Symeoni.

My Darlin’ Evangeline by Henry Kane. (1961) Artwork by Baryé Phillips.

Never Leave Me by Harold Robbins. (1959) Artwork by Ernest Chiriacka.

Murder on her Mind by Vechel Howard. (1959)

Vertigo by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. (1958) Artwork by Robert Maguire.

Negative of a Nude by Charles E. Fritch. (1959) Artwork by Robert Maguire.

A Girl Like That by John Plunkett. (1961) Artwork by Robert Maguire.

The Tormented by Theodore Pratt. (1950) Artwork by Baryé Phillips.

Double Agent by Gene Stackelberg. (1959) Artwork by Mitchell Hooks.

The Flesh Peddlers by Frank Boyd. (1959) Artwork by Robert Maguire.

[zippocreed501]

AUTHOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

'Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.'

'Boileau said that Kings, Gods and Heroes only were fit subjects for literature. The writer can only write about what he admires. Present-day kings aren't very inspiring, the gods are on a vacation and about the only heroes left are the scientists and the poor.'

'If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced that there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes but by no means always find the way to do it.'

'The craft or art of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness.'

Author Extraordinaire John Steinbeck

[pulpficat]

Các thể loại trinh thám (Mystery/Crime fiction)

Thuật ngữ được giữ nguyên để dễ tra cứu. 🧩 cozy: thể loại trinh thám nhẹ nhàng, các chi tiết thô tục, tình dục, bạo lực đều bị loại bỏ. ví dụ: series bà Marple của Dame Agatha Christie. 🗝️ locked room: tội ác được thực hiện theo một cách bất khả thi, ví dụ như trong phòng kín. ví dụ: Bí mật căn phòng vàng (Gaston Leroux), Cánh cửa thứ 4, Giả thuyết thứ 7 (Paul Halter), Sáu tội ác không có hung thủ (Pierre Boileau), Tokyo hoàng đạo án (Soji Shimada)

🔍 whodunit: thể loại phổ biến nhất, với một cốt truyện phức tạp, nhiều manh mối rải rác. Người đọc có thể đoán thủ phạm trước khi đáp án được công bố ở đoạn kết. ví dụ: series Sherlock Holmes của Sir Conan Doyle, series Hercule Poirot của Dame Agatha Christie. 🔎 howcatchem: người đọc đã biết trước thủ phạm là ai và toàn bộ nội dung truyện chỉ xoay quanh việc thủ phạm bị lật tẩy như thế nào. ví dụ: Phía sau nghi can X (Higashino Keigo), Death Note (Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata) 📜 historical: vụ án được đặt trong bối cảnh lịch sử nhất định. ví dụ: Địch Công kỳ án (Robert Van Gulik), Tên của đóa hồng (Umberto Eco) 🎲 hardboiled: đậm đặc bạo lực và/hoặc tình dục; nhân vật chính thường phải trải qua nguy hiểm chết người, nhưng luôn có trai đẹp hoặc gái xinh bên cạnh. Và kiểu gì cũng có vài cảnh nóng. ví dụ: series Philip Marlowe của Raymond Chandler, series Sam Spade của Dashiell Hammett, series Mike Hammer của Mickey Spillane. ♟️ noir: thể loại gần gũi với hardboiled, bối cảnh tăm tối, thiên về tâm lý hơn hành động, nhân vật chính thường là nạn nhân, nghi phạm hoặc hung thủ. Thường không có kết thúc tốt đẹp gì. ví dụ: Theo em vào bóng đêm, Kết hôn với người chết (Cornell Woolrich), Đảo kinh hoàng, Dòng sông Kỳ Bí (Dennis Lehane) 🚔 police procedural: điều tra viên là cảnh sát. ví dụ: series Adamsberg của Fred Vargas, series Kamenskaya của Alexandra Marinina. 🕵️‍♂️ private investigator/detective: điều tra viên là thám tử tư. ví dụ: quá nhiều, khỏi cần ví dụ. 🔬 forensic: điều tra viên thường là nhân viên giám định hoặc bác sĩ pháp y, phá án dựa vào các bằng chứng trên tử thi hoặc hiện trường vụ án. ví dụ: series Lincoln Rhyme của Jeffery Deaver, series Kay Scarpetta của Patricia Cornwell, series Rizzoli & Isles của Tess Gerritsen. ⚖️ courtroom: bối cảnh pháp đình, người đọc có thể biết trước các nghi phạm và theo dõi các chi tiết của vụ án được tiết lộ trong phiên tòa. Thường sử dụng thủ pháp hồi tưởng. ví dụ: series Perry Mason của Erle Stanley Gardner. 👓 legal: các nhân vật chính là luật sư, công tố viên, thẩm phán, v.v. bối cảnh không nhất định chỉ ở trong tòa án như thể loại courtroom. ví dụ: Thân chủ, Công ty rửa tiền, Bồi thẩm đoàn chạy trốn (John Grisham) 🍸 spy: các nhân vật chính là điệp viên, thường làm việc cho các cơ quan tình báo. ví dụ: Điệp viên từ miền đất lạnh (John le Carré), Kẻ giết mướn Jackal (Frederick Forsyth), Sáu ngày của Condor (James Grady), Sòng bạc hoàng gia (Ian Fleming) 💸 caper/heist: được kể từ quan điểm của tội phạm, thường nói về 1 hoặc nhiều vụ trộm cắp, lừa đảo, bắt cóc, có thể có yếu tố hài hước. ví dụ: Cả thế gian trong túi (James Hadley Chase), Nếu còn có ngày mai (Sidney Sheldon) 🔫 gangster: bối cảnh là cuộc chiến giữa các băng đảng, tổ chức tội phạm, xã hội đen, có quy mô lớn hơn các tội ác cá nhân, thường tập trung vào đấu trí và hành động hơn là tâm lý, có thể kết hợp với noir hoặc hardboiled. ví dụ: Bố Già và một số tiểu thuyết khác của Mario Puzo. 🔐 code-cracking: vụ án có đầu mối là các mật mã, biểu tượng do hung thủ hoặc nạn nhân để lại, là mấu chốt để phá án. Có thể kết hợp với thể loại giải mã chúc thư hoặc đi tìm kho báu. ví dụ : Những hình nhân nhảy múa (Sir Conan Doyle), Vụ án trường Oxford (Guillermo Martinez), series Robert Langdon của Dan Brown. 🧠 psychological: vụ án có yếu tố tâm lý học, thường nói về cuộc đấu trí giữa điều tra viên và kẻ giết người (hàng loạt). ví dụ: series Hannibal Lecter của Thomas Harris, series Phương Mộc của Lôi Mễ. 👻 supernatural: vụ án có yếu tố siêu nhiên. ví dụ: Giao lộ sinh tử (Dean Koontz), series X-Files (viết dựa trên kịch bản phim) 👣 suspense/thriller: truyện có yếu tố hồi hộp, giật gân, có thể pha trộn các thể loại hành động, phiêu lưu hoặc trinh thám, bí ẩn, đôi khi là cả kinh dị, nhưng không nhất thiết phải bao gồm tội ác cũng như quá trình điều tra. ví dụ: Misery (Stephen King), Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier), Trước lúc ngủ say (S. J. Watson) ☠️ true crime: được viết dựa trên tội ác có thật. ví dụ: Máu lạnh (Truman Capote), Người vô tội (John Grisham), Quá trễ để nói lời từ biệt (Ann Rule) 💡 juvenile: trinh thám dành cho thiếu nhi, với nhân vật chính là điều tra viên nhỏ tuổi. ví dụ: Tứ quái TKKG (Stefan Wolf), Ba thám tử trẻ (Robert Arthur và nhiều tác giả khác), Kỳ án chim dẽ giun (Alan Bradley) và các cuốn cùng series Flavia de Luce, series Theodore Boone của John Grisham. 🐕‍🦺 animal: nhân vật chính là động vật, có thể phá án trong thế giới động vật hoặc thế giới con người. ví dụ: Thám tử Freddy, Freddy và kẻ mặt mịt (Walter Brooks), Felidae (Akif Pirinçci) - chưa được dịch sang tiếng Việt, viết về chú mèo điều tra những vụ giết mèo hàng loạt, đã được dựng phim, Three Bags Full (Leonie Swann) - chưa được dịch sang tiếng Việt, viết về chú cừu đi tìm chân tướng vụ sát hại người chăn cừu. 🐾 parody/spoof: được viết để giễu nhại trinh thám truyền thống, thường mang tính chất hài hước, châm biếm. ví dụ: Cái lò gạch bí mật (Nguyễn Công Hoan). Phim thì có Naked Gun, Pink Panther, Johnny English. còn thể loại trinh thám pha yếu tố lãng mạn nữa, nhưng không thích nên không xếp vào đây.

[brokehorrorfan]

The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection will be released on September 8 via Universal Pictures. The 4K Ultra HD (with Blu-ray and Digital) box set collects four films directed by the Master of Suspense: Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds.

1954's Rear Window is a mystery thriller written by John Michael Hayes (To Catch a Thief), based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder. James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr star.

1958's Vertigo is a psychological thriller written by Alec Coppel (No Highway in the Sky) and Samuel A. Taylor (Sabrina), based on Boileau-Narcejac's 1954 novel The Living and the Dead. James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, and Henry Jones star.

1960's Psycho is a horror-thriller film written by Joseph Stefano (The Outer Limits), based on Robert Bloch's 1959 novel of the same name. Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam, John McIntire, and Janet Leigh star.

1963's The Birds is a horror-thriller film written by Evan Hunter (High and Low), based on Daphne du Maurier’s 1952 short story of the same name. Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, and Veronica Cartwright star.

The box set features Discbook packaging. Notably, it includes the original, uncut version of Psycho for the first time since its theatrical debut, in addition to the standard version. A full list of extras is below.

Rear Window special features:

Audio commentary by Hitchcock's Rear Window: The Well-Made Film author John Fawell

Rear Window Ethics - 2000 documentary

Conversation with Screenwriter John Michael Hayes

Pure Cinema: Through the Eyes of The Master

Breaking Barriers: The Sound of Hitchcock

Masters of Cinema

Hitchcock/Truffaut - Audio recording from filmmaker François Truffaut’s in-depth interview with director Alfred Hitchcock about Rear Window

Production photo gallery

Theatrical trailer

Re-release trailer narrated by James Stewart

A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.

Vertigo special features:

Audio commentary by filmmaker William Friedkin (The Exorcist)

Obsessed with Vertigo: New Life for Hitchcock's Masterpiece

Partners In Crime: Hitchcock's Collaborators

Saul Bass: Title Champ

Edith Head: Dressing the Master's Movies

Bernard Herrmann: Hitchcock's Maestro

Alma: The Master's Muse

Foreign censorship ending

100 Years of Universal: The Lew Wasserman Era

Hitchcock/Truffaut - Audio recording from filmmaker François Truffaut’s in-depth interview with director Alfred Hitchcock about Vertigo

Theatrical trailer

Restoration theatrical trailer

A former police detective juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with a hauntingly beautiful woman.

Psycho special features:

Original uncut and standard re-releases version of the film

The Making of Psycho

The Making of Psycho audio commentary with Alfred Hitchcock and The Making of Psycho author Stephen Rebello

Psycho Sound

In The Master's Shadow: Hitchcock's Legacy

Newsreel Footage: The Release of Psycho

The Shower Scene: With and Without Music

The Shower Sequence: Storyboards by Saul Bass

The Psycho Archives

Hitchcock/Truffaut - Audio recording from filmmaker François Truffaut’s in-depth interview with director Alfred Hitchcock about Psycho

Posters and ad gallery

Lobby card gallery

Behind-the-scenes photo gallery

Production photo gallery

Psycho theatrical trailers

Psycho re-release trailer

A Phoenix secretary embezzles forty thousand dollars from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.

The Birds special features:

The Birds: Hitchcock's Monster Movie

All About The Birds

Original ending

Deleted scene

Tippi Hedren's screen test

The Birds is coming (Universal International Newsreel)

Suspense Story: National Press Club hears Hitchcock (Universal International Newsreel)

100 Years of Universal: Restoring the Classics

100 Years of Universal: The Lot

Hitchcock/Truffaut - Audio recording from filmmaker François Truffaut’s in-depth interview with director Alfred Hitchcock about Vertigo

Theatrical trailer

A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.

[bluebeardsbride-archive]

reading list for 2020 2019 reading list literature recommendations last updated 7.1.2020

crossed = finished bolded = currently reading plain = to read * = reread + = priority

ask if you want PDFs!

currently reading: The Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon by David Sylvester We Eat Our Own by Kea Wilson Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson Inferno by Dante Aligheri

novels (unsorted) The Border of Paradise by Esmé Weijun Wang +Justine by Lawrence Durrell Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy +Death in Venice by Thomas Mann* The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco* The Letters of Mina Harker by Dodie Bellamy Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille +Nightwood by Djuna Barnes +Malina by Ingeborg Bachman A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride Monsieur Venus by Rachilde +The Marquise de Sade by Rachilde +A King Alone by Jean Giono +The Scarab by Manuel Mujica Lainez +The Invitation by Beatrice Guido Operation Massacre by Rodolfo Walsh She Who Was No More by Boileau-Narcejac Mascaro, the American Hunter by Haroldo Conti European Travels for the Monstrous Gentlewomen by Theodora Goss Kiss Me, Judas by Christopher Baer Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt The Grip of It by Jac Jemc Celestine by Olga Ravn The Girl Who Ate Birds by Paul Nougé The Necrophiliac by Gabrielle Wittkop Possessions by Julia Kristeva

classics The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio* Purgatio by Dante Aligheri Paradiso by Dante Aligheri

short story collections The Wilds: Stories by Julia Elliot The Dark Dark: Stories by Samantha Hunt Severance by Robert Olen Butler Enfermario by Gabriela Torres Olivares Sirens and Demon Lovers: 22 Stories of Desire edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling The Beastly Bride edited by Ellen Datlow  +Vampire In Love by Enrique Vila-Matas Collected works of Leonora Carrington Collected works of Silvina Ocampo Collected works of Everil Worrel Collected works of Luisa Valenzuela

theatre +Faust by Goethe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe Phaedra’s Love by Sarah Kane

nonfiction (unsorted) Countess Dracula by Tony Thorne +The Bloody Countess by Valentine Penrose Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsebet Bathory by Kimberly L. Craft Blake by Peter Akroyd Lives of the Necromancers by William Godwin A History of the Heart by Ole M. Høystad On Monsters by Stephen T. Asma +Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination by Avery Gordon +Consoling Ghosts : Stories of Medicine and Mourning from Southeast Asians in Exile by Jean M. Langford essays (unsorted) When the Sick Rule the World: Essays by Dodie Bellamy Academonia: Essays by Dodie Bellamy ‘On the Devil, and Devils’ by Percy Shelley +An Erotic Beyond: Sade by Octavio Paz

poetry +100 Notes on Violence by Julia Carr

academia (unsorted) Essays on the Art of Angela Carter: Flesh and the Mirror edited by Lorna Sage The Routledge Companion to Literature and Food edited by Lorna Piatti-Farnell, Donna Lee Brien Cupid’s Knife: Women's Anger and Agency in Violent Relationships by Abby Stein Traumatic Encounters in Italian Film: Locating the Cinematic Unconscious by Fabio Vighi The Severed Flesh: Capital Visions by Julia Kristeva Feast and Folly: Cuisine, Intoxication, and the Poetics of the Sublime by Allen S. Weiss

on horrror Terrors in Cinema edited by Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper Robin Wood on the Horror Film: Collected Essays and Reviews by Robin Wood Monster Theory: Reading Culture by Jeffrey Cohen The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart by Noël Caroll Dark Dreams 2.0: A Psychological History of the Modern Horror Film from the 1950s to the 21st Century by Charles Derry Monsters of Our Own Making by Marina Warner Monster Culture in the 21st Century: A Reader edited by by Marina Levina and Diem My Bui

the gothic Woman and Demon: The Life of a Victorian Myth by Nina Auerbach Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters by J. Halberstam +Perils of the Night: A Feminist Study of Nineteenth-Century Gothic by Eugenia C. Delamotte Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic by Anne Williams Body Gothic: Corporeal Transgression in Contemporary Literature and Horror Film by Xavier Aldana Reyes On the Supernatural in Poetry by Ann Radcliffe The Gothic Flame by Devendra P. Varma Gothic Versus Romantic: A Reevaluation of the Gothic Novel by Robert D. Hume A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful by Edmund Burke Over Her Dead Body by Elisabeth Bronfen The Contested Castle: Gothic Novels and the Subversion of Domestic Ideology by Kate Ellis Gothic Documents: A Sourcebook, 1700-1820 by E. Clery Limits of Horror: Technology, Bodies, Gothic edited by Fred Botting The History of Gothic Fiction by Markman Ellis The Routledge Companion to the Gothic edited by Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy Gothic and Gender edited by Donna Heiland Romanticism and the Gothic Tradition by G.R. Thompson Cryptomimesis : The Gothic and Jacques Derrida’s Ghost Writing by Jodie Castricano

bluebeard Bluebeard’s legacy: death and secrets from Bartók to Hitchcock edited by Griselda Pollock and Victoria Anderson The tale of Bluebeard in German literature: from the eighteenth century to the present Mererid Puw Davies Bluebeard: a reader’s guide to the English tradition by Casie E. Hermansson Bluebeard gothic : Jane Eyre and its progeny Heta Pyrhönen Bluebeard Tales from Around the World by Heidi Ann Heiner

religion The Incorruptible Flesh: Bodily Mutation and Mortification in Religion and Folklore by Piero Camporesi Afterlives: The Return of the Dead in the Middles Ages by Nancy Caciola Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages by Nancy Caciola “He Has a God in Him”: Human and Divine in the Modern Perception of Dionysus by Albert Henrichs The Ordinary Business of Occultism by Gauri Viswanathan The Body and Society. Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity by Peter Brown

cannibalism Eat What You Kill: Or, a Strange and Gothic Tale of Cannibalism by Consent Charles J. Reid Jr. Consuming Passions: The Uses of Cannibalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe by Merrall Llewelyn Price Cannibalism in High Medieval English Literature by Heather Blurton +Eating Their Words: Cannibalism and the Boundaries of Cultural Identity edited by Kristen Guest Dinner with a Cannibal: The Complete History of Mankind’s Oldest Taboo by Carole A. Travis-Henikoff

crime Savage Appetites by Rachel Monroe In Cold Blood by Truman Capote The Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John Douglass

theory/philosophy Life Everlasting: the animal way of death by Bernd Heinrich The Ambivalence of Scarcity and Other Essays by René Girard Interviews with Hélène Cixous Symposium by Plato Phaedra by Plato Becoming-Rhythm: A Rhizomatics of the Girl by Leisha Jones The Abject of Desire: The Aestheticization of the Unaesthetic in Contemporary Literature and Culture edited by Konstanze Kutzbach, Monika Mueller The Severed Head: Capital Visions by Julia Kristeva

perfume & alchemy Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent by Jean-Claude Ellena The Perfume Lover: A Personal Story of Scent by Denyse Beaulieu Past Scents: Historical Perspectives on Smell by Jonathan Reinarz Fragrant: The Secret Life of Scent by Mandy Aftel Das Parfum by Patrick Süskind* Scents and Sensibility: Perfume in Victorian Literary Culture by Catherine Maxwell The Foul and the Fragrant by Alain Corbin +throughsmoke by Jehanne Dubrow “The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Perfume” by Katy Kelleher

medicine The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris

Finished (Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film by Jalal Toufic