'The Robing Of The Bride', Max Ernst, 1940.

GUEST BLOG: 'The Transcendent Beauty of Right-wing American Art!!!' by Randy Midichlorian

  (Spool note: regular spool readers will recall the controversy stirred when Libertarian SF author Randy Midichlorean last appeared here. With some trepidation I invite him back here again to talk about a (somewhat surprising) interest of his:  art. 

Though we may not agree with all Randy's opinions, Spool Pidgin firmly respects his right to free speech. And his collection of guns)





 I have never met artist Jon McNaughton (though no doubt we shall meet in that holy Other Place one day and raise a glass to Christ's pimped out rumpus room), but when my novels hit Amazon's #1 in the self-published christian steampunk genre, I shall commission him to paint the ceiling of my compound.

McNaughton is the Tea Party Titian, the GOP Giovanni, the libertarian equivalent of whoever it is paints those pictures of puppies in baskets and orphans with banjos. In a nutshell:  a genius.

Come, let us take a trip into his visionary world. Look upon his works, ye Maddow, and despair...

I love that the name of this painting is called Stand Your Ground.  It represents everything that the Left is against: Freedom, America, Men, Guns, Whites, Men, Masculine Strength and American maleness in all its tight-trousered pride. 'Hmm...' our subject seems to be thinking,  'is that France on the horizon? Lock and load...'

 McNaughton, like myself, is a master of near-future sci-fi. Here he imagines a utopia where liberals are forced into quarantine camps before they get a chance to make the US resemble Nazi Germany. The title? Liberalism Is A Disease.

The realism is astounding: from my time spent at protests I can assure you Michael Moore's head is the size of Matt Damon's chest and Whoopi Goldberg's feet are where her hips should be.

The horror mounts as we discover the 'zone' is that most dangerous of hellholes: gun free (in a world without ballistic weapons constant vigilance = survival). In the distance the hurricane of Obamacare looms, the Satan-owl of atheism holds court in a tree and a wind turbine inclined toward high taxation smirks at the far left. The turbine, of course, is powered by the hurricane: such is McNaughton's complex genius.

This is the first of a powerful triptych addressing our times. In 'the Forgotten Man' a man has been forgotten. Forgotten, that is, save for the founding fathers and Lincoln (tragically, a smiling Reagan looks like he's forgotten just about everything, let alone the man).

'Look,' founding father Bentford Wankfield implores President Obama, 'you're stood on the Declaration of Independence, you freak! Have you forgotten what that means?'

'Indy-who?' Obama sneers, whilst his cronies--Clinton and the Roosevelts--applaud two homosexuals on the horizon.

In the background the White House stands in full illumination. Someone must have forgotten to turn the lights off.

 

 

Yet all is not lost. Reveling in his second elected tyranny, Darth Obama has clearly forgotten the Forgotten Man. The Forgotten Man is not without his resources. Or manly tools...

He becomes... The Empowered Man!!! Lincoln and the founding fathers rejoice, founding father Bentford Wankfield invents twerking (pious twerking) and Clinton mourns his vanished homosexuals (who have sauntered off to find a handbag to put Whoopi Goldberg in).

Obama looks on. His expression may look like he's merely found a gone-off salad at the back of the refridgerator, but his hands are clearly aghast.

 'You think this shit is over, Forgotten and/or Empowered Man?' Obama asks in One Nation Under Socialism. Standing on the Declaration of Independence having failed him as a strategy, like all villains he ups his game in the sequel. He sets FIRE to the Declaration, pointing at the flames for emphasis.

Not so fast, Obamanation (as in 'abomination'. Or, if you prefer, 'Barracksphemy')! Nothing tops Jesus-power!!!

Obama now vaporized, The Forgotten and/or Empowered Man is transformed into a child of joy, Lincoln and the founding fathers break into interpretive dance and Reagan still has no idea what's going on. But he's happy.

'

'Come, Child of Joy who was once The Forgotten and/or Empowered Man,' quoth Christ (now wearing the hijab of a feminist Muslim he bested in combat), 'Let us reside in this obscure, shady forest clearing alone.'

Amen!

Night Of The Revenger!

 Some of you might recall I interviewed artist Warwick Frazer-Coombe on the TTA Press website about his cover work for Interzone magazine. I love this guy's artwork, with its dynamic and distinctive visions of worlds gone to pieces, and would look forward to the next cover of his year-long picture-reveal at IZ back in 2010.












Warwick's sharp vibrancy is a clear match for a graphic novel project. Evidently, Warwick knows this too:  here's episode one of the darkly comic, or comically dark (take your pick)  THE REVENGER, written and drawn by the man himself.

The Revenger concerns Roger, a highly-strung (and oddly naive) ex-squaddie back from the horrors of the gulf war. Donning a gimp mask (the inspiration for which seems unconsciously rooted in his marriage's breakdown), he decides to take out his post-traumatic distress and self-loathing on a rundown modern Britain.

Taxi Driver meets Kick Ass with a dash of Mike Leigh perhaps (I note Warwick's use of tight or non-existent spaces between the frames lends it a clautrophobia and intensity reminiscent of the former). I can't shake the feeling this isn't gonna progress quite the way one might expect a vigilante tale to go, however. I'll be fascinated to see the next issue.

I Want to Show You Something Really Quite Magical

 I want to show you something truly magical. In fact I think it's one of the best things you can possibly image search on Google: Ancient Roman mummy portraits. Not the cold marble of Gods and Emperors, but the painted faces of real, everyday people like you or me who went about their day in the classical world. It's an intimate and moving sight if you've never seen them before, trust me.  Like You could reach out and hold their hands...

The Marvellous and Melancholic Art Of Ganesh Pyne

Magical stuff, isn't it? It's the work of Indian fine artist Ganesh Pyne, who I've only just happened upon thanks, sadly, to an obituary. According to Wikipedia he spent his childhood in a crumbling family mansion in Calcutta (now Kolkata) listening to his grandmother's folktales which, to look at his work, kind of figures.

To this add 'the week of the long knives'; the Great Calcutta Killings of August, 1946, that followed the understatedly titled (in retrospect) 'direct action day'. Amongst other horrors, a nine-year old Pyne witnessed a cartload of bodies pass him and his family as they made their way to a safe zone. As with J.G Ballard's experiences in the civilian prison camps of the Imperial Japanese, one senses the blood poured into Pyne's art. Both men, I think, understood that beneath civilization's veneer lurks a ready violence. Hell is round the corner, should we lose our decency and choose to go that way.

His Wikipedia entry lists cubism as an influence, which I don't really know enough about to comment on. Neither, of course, can I say much for the cultural context this art was made in- I've never been to India. But what I can say is this work, in its choice of tones and imagery, resonates with me on some level.

It reminds me of my childhood in rundown eighties Leicester. I think of a closed down shop I used to walk past, its window dirty with traffic fumes and the dust of Midlands industry. The shop was black and empty when you peered through the window, but--somehow--a female dummy remained, still wearing a red sari. The sari had sequins or tiny mirrors (my memory now is as faded as that dress) all over it and they glimmered from the streetlamps outside.

A peculiar sort of image--a Leicester-Gothic, you might call it--and Ganesh Pyne's visions dredge it up from my depths. But that's great art for you: able to find context in any locality.

The above pictures are a selection of some of my favorites. You can find your own here.

Thoughts on a Picture (A years a long time, huh?)

About a year ago I interviewed Warwick Fraser-Coombe on Interzone's website. Warwick, an illustrator with his own dynamic style and, I believe, a career to watch, had been asked to create a year's worth of covers for IZ. He hit upon the notion of creating one big-ass macropicture that would do the whole job by dividing into six standalones.

A fine plan, and a finer joy to watch it manifest throughout 2010- IZ readers looked forward to each issue in the hope of piecing the rusty, semi-automatic narrative together, one that began with a cycloptic robot, continued with spikey Diesel-Huns and the cast of Grange Hill, and resolved itself with a 5 year old evil despot.

So I bought a print of it. I got it framed. And realised I had no place to put it up.

A year later and, finally, I've remedied the matter. Something like this can't be left in bubble wrap, and so I decided to offer it to my pal Annant Chand and his enviable collection of bare, wide and personally owned walls. 'On loan' from 'The Worrad Collection' as it were. Postcards and coffee table books we'll be on sale in his front room.



Annant demonstrates his levitation skills


Getting the picture up has given me a chance to reflect on its subject matter. To me, its a prophecy in abstract. Creepily so...

SF artists have a talent for prediction that can often outstrip SF writers, despite we qwerty-bashers getting all the attention in that department. An artist's future-sight is less conscious but can have a greater accuracy, taking, as they do, a handful of the modern world's thematic entrails and throwing them at a canvas.

A lot can happen in a year. Anyone living through 2011 can tell you that. Warwick's picture shows young civilians summoning courage to stand up against a titanic, power-ripe enemy. Their cause, seemingly, is both noble and necessary. It's certainly progressive. Close inspection of the work reveals both sides bear images of the game noughts and crosses (or 'tic-tac-toe', colonial chums). The difference is the bad guy's are all locked in an unwinnable status quo. The good guy's games (all of which are daubed on to public walls) offer the promise of change.

Warwick Fraser-Coombe's picture is Tahir square and Wall Street, Oakland and Misrata. It is 2011 seen from 2010.