Found from Bean (aka. riotclitshave) Wish I knew more! Isn’t it stunning?

Woman with Cross and Skull
19th c. – Qajar period, Iran
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper

Mistick Krewe of Comus float design, by Jennie Wilde — 1910
(see link below for the full set!)

(Any idea about who painted this? Tin Eye was stumped.
I traced it back toblessedwildapplegirl but the buck stopped there.)
✸ Bibiodyssey’s post on vintage Mardi Gras Designs
Mistick Krewe of Comus 1910 float designs
of float design drawings by Jennie Wilde
browse them all at the Louisiana Research Collection
I remember at French Quarter Postal Emporium they used to sell little postcard books of these.
I was always too broke to buy them, so would look at them when standing in line waiting to mail
my parcels, much to the chagrin of the fussy queens who worked there.
✸ I think I’ve mentioned my love for Shirley & Spinoza Radio before,
but it’s been awhile. I had forgotten how much I loved them. How could I?
They play the best, oddest and most obscure scraps of brilliance ever.
✸ Academy Award-nominated actress and Austin artist Susan Tyrrell loves sex, fags and gangsta rap.
Hooray for Susu Tyrrell, and hooray for my friend Chris Apollo Lynn, who interviewed her.
This article on the temptation of memory engineering is extremely absorbing:
✸ Removable Truths – A memory expert’s indestructible past.
By William Saletan
Reading it has made me fixate on our fallible and flexible memories. I recently
had an odd experience, where I realized that I had vividly remembered something
(the color, make and model of a friend’s car) that turned out to be wildly inaccurate.
It’s disturbing to think about, really. How could I remember it to be a burgundy Chevy
hoopty when it was really a white Mercedes diesel? I guess it was dark, and I was very
distracted – but really? That’s kind of a huge discrepancy. I was shocked to discover it.
Thanks to William Gibson for recommending this article, among many other things-
and speaking of, for the following recommendations as well:
✸ William Gibson’s favorite science fiction novels
I haven’t read a single one of these, though Wiley Wiggins did try to foist
Dhalgren on me years ago. Gibson says, “It won’t work unless you can allow
it to become your head for a few weeks; it helps if you’re rather young.” I think
I was too jaded by that point to really get into it. I’d discovered early on what my
bag was as far as science fiction went, from devouring my dad’s 70’s pulp paperbacks.
I tend not to dig anything where the characters are named Zorn or live on planet Xerzon.
The incredible images on the covers definitely made a huge impression on me, though.
I think I’ll need to see if my pops has any of the books on that list, and get my summer
space-sorceror escapist thing going. How about you? Got any favorite science fiction
I need to read? Lay it on me. We’re getting a new hammock tomorrow, so I need book-fuel!
✸ I just went on a bookspree and snatched up seven new books
but I absolutely must get this one next – it looks amazing:
CYCLONOPEDIA – Complicity with Anonymous Materials
By Reza Negarestani
“An American woman arrives in Istanbul to meet a pseudonymous
online acquaintance who never arrives. Discovering a strange manuscript in her hotel room,
she follows up its cryptic clues only to discover more plot-holes, and begins to wonder whether
her friend was a fictional quantity all along. Meanwhile, as the War on Terror escalates, the US
is dragged into an asymmetrical engagement with occultures whose principles are ancient, obscure,
and saturated in oil. It is as if war itself is feeding upon the warmachines, leveling cities into the desert,
seducing the aggressors into the dark heart of oil …
At once a horror fiction, a work of speculative theology, an atlas of demonology, a political samizdat
and a philosophic grimoire, Cyclonopedia is work of theory-fiction on the Middle East, where horror
is restlessly heaped upon horror. Reza Negarestani bridges the appalling vistas of contemporary world
politics and the War on Terror with the archeologies of the Middle East and the natural history of the Earth
itself. Cyclonopedia is a middle-eastern Odyssey, populated by archeologists, jihadis, oil smugglers,
Delta Force officers, heresiarchs, corpses of ancient gods and other puppets. The journey to the Underworld
begins with petroleum basins and the rotting Sun, continuing along the tentacled pipelines of oil, and at last
unfolding in the desert, where monotheism meets the Earth’s tarry dreams of insurrection against the Sun.”
✸ Burkas and Birkins –
I Watched 146 Minutes of Sex and the City 2 and All I Got Was This Religious Fundamentalism by Lindy West
This is so goddamn hilarious – and I’m so grateful to Lindy for seeing this awful bit o’ tripe
so I don’t have to! I still have never seen even one episode of that show, and an entire film
based on it sounds completely intolerable. I do love pretty frippery and all, but whoa. Scary!
✸ Pamela Colman Smith’s Russian Ballet
Pixie Smith is my number one magicienne inspiration.
She’s at the head of the invite list for my fantasy seance
dinner party, along with Joseph Cornell, Edward Gorey,
Louise Brooks, Vali Myers, and Austin Osman Spare.
Who would you invite to yours?
✸ Why are the East of Cities usually Poorer?
(via the always kick-ass from Brainpickings)
Interesting! I’d always wondered about this.
✸ Honeybee death mystery deepens
Colony collapse disorder linked to mix of fungal and viral infections.
A good article with actual information rather than hysteria. Don’t get me
wrong – I am worried about the bees every day, but having any clues as
to what is actually ailing them is the only way we can setting about changing
that. I can’t wait for the day when I can start to set up my hives. Honey magic!
✸ Post Pridematic Stress Syndrome – Shaking out Austin’s weekend of Pride
Here’s the run-down of articles, info and tantalizing tidbits from Pride,
including the entire text of Silky Shoemaker’s stunning speech at Queerbomb!

My dear friend Ooops is an amazing aerial artist who recently choreographed
and performed this piece as an homage to our friend Noah Vasilchek.
With Niki Frisky as her deer-twin, and the inimitable Chris Lane as emcee, and a bunch of
rowdies at One Eyed Jacks hootin’ and hollerin’. This is one of my favorite aerial performances, ever.
That’s what’s floatin’ around the rusty brainpan of late!
If you’ve got any suggestions for books/music/art/culture/information
that I need to know about, drop me a line on my tin can telephone.
I’ll be hanging out with the reading in my cave by the river with the
skulls of obscure saints to keep me company. Passenger pigeons
or smoke signals are accepted also, and if you travel in dreams,
come say hello. I get around most nights, more than I would’ve
guessed – but judging from how often I seem to pop up in the
dreams of friends and future friends, it seems I’m a nightly roamer.