Jahsonic's microblog

Everybody knows this is Perla … 

 At 29:38 in the documentary film Surplus: Terrorized into Being Consumers (2003) you see an unlabeled metal tube of paste. The woman who shows it says “We call it pasta de dientes … and it’s called Perla … everybody knows this is Perla … you don’t need to put it on anymore.”

In a communist regime there is only need for one brand of each consumer good. There is of course no need for advertising.

“In the days before Pasteur man’s population was maintained approximately constant from generation to generation by a cybernetic system in which the principal feedback element at the upper limit was disease. The crowd-diseases — smallpox, cholera, typhoid, plague, etc. — are, by the ecologist, labeled "density-dependent factors,” whose effectiveness in reducing population is a power function of the density of the population. No growth of population could get out of hand as long as the crowd-diseases were unconquered, which means that man did not have to sit in judgment on man, to decide who should have a cover at Nature’s feast and who should not.“ –Nature and Man’s Fate (1965) by Garrett Hardin

RIP Sergio Rossi (1935 – 2020)

RIP Juan Giménez (1943 - 2020)

“Juan Giménez’s apocalyptic garbage” on the cover of Heavy Metal Illustrated Fantasy Magazine Spring 1987.

Currently writing at http://blog.jahsonic.com, where I solved the riddle of the above painting, which I saw at Montpellier. For that story, see here.

Speaking of London: a Pilgrimage, have I shown you this Doré illustration?

See Opium Smoking — The Lascar’s Room in “ Edwin Drood ” (Gustave Doré)

I want to see this book in my hand eventually.

Enchantements sur Paris (1954) is – along with Paris insolite (1952), Le Vin des rues (1955) and Love on the Left Bank (1956) – the granddaddy of low life city journalism if you leave out London: A Pilgrimage (1872).

“First issued in 1954 under the publisher’s choice of title Enchantements sur Paris (Paris Spellbound)‚ reissued in accordance the author’s wishes as Rue des Maléfices (Witchcraft Street)‚ Jacques Yonnet ’s only published book fits into no single category. Personal diary‚ memoir of some of the darkest hours in a nation’s history‚ guide to a city’s lower depths‚ ethnographical study of an urban population that no longer exists or has been driven elsewhere‚ record of a number of paranormal incidents and experiences - Paris Noir is all of these.” – translator’s note (Christine Donougher) to Paris Noir: The Secret History of a City.

Depicted is the 1966 edition I believe, which was augmented and enhanced by photos by Robert Doisneau.

RIP Mary Mendum (1952 - 2012)

Via the death of Ken Shapiro and my first viewing of that awful film The Groove Tube, it has come to my attention that Mary Mendum died five years ago. In The Groove Tube Mendum plays the female contestant of the world sex olympics.

She is depicted above in the fine film The Image as she lifts her skirt for her mistress in the very exciting rose garden scene.

Portrait of Francis Poictevin[1]