Ballardian

Two years ago, Simon Sellars, Bruce Sterling and V. Vale appeared on a panel, ‘Myths of a Near Future’, to discuss the work of J.G. Ballard. Our friend Tim Chapman was in the audience and he has kindly transcribed the discussion. Here it is, two years late, but hopefully still of interest: ‘Myths of a Near Future’.

A review-essay of Jeremy Reed’s latest collection of poetry, West End Survival Kit. The review also discusses the long and enigmatic relationship Reed has with Ballard, who wrote the foreword to the collection, where he paid tribute to Reed’s ‘extraterrestrial talent’.

JG Ballard’s writing encompassed topics as diverse as ecological crisis, technological fetishism, urban ruination and suburban mob culture. In this extract from the September-October issue of Architectural Design, Nic Clear explores how Ballard’s understanding of architecture and architects made him one of the most important figures in the literary articulation of architectural issues and concerns.

The story of Savoy Books is one of the strangest in publishing history: a tale of lost opportunities, missed opportunities, repression, censorship, imprisonment … and, most importantly, an incredible legacy of work that continues to disturb, challenge and confront. Mike Holliday talks to Savoy co-founder Michael Butterworth about all this and more, including the guidance Butterworth received as a young writer from J.G. Ballard.

“As Michael Jackson reached middle age, the skin of both his cheeks and neck tended to sag from failure of the supporting structures. His naso-labial folds deepened, and the soft tissues along his jaw fell forward. His jowls tended to increase. In profile the creases of his neck lengthened and the chin-neck contour lost its youthful outline and became convex.”

Here are some preliminary thoughts from the city of Barcelona, where I am appearing on a panel to talk about the work of J.G. Ballard as part of the Kosmopolis literary festival.

Ballard on horror fiction: ‘There are sudden glimpses of the shocking and unspeakable in my fiction too, so there is a certain overlap’.

Rick McGrath interviews Solveig Nordlund about her feature film, Aparelho Voador a Baixa Altitude (2002). Based on JGB’s short story, ‘Low-Flying Aircraft’, it’s arguably the best Ballard adaptation of them all, although it has rarely been shown outside Portugal. Included with the interview are clips from the film as well as from Solveig’s previous Ballard adaptation, ‘Journey to Orion’ (based on ‘Thirteen to Centaurus’).

Parallels between Ballard’s Kingdom Come and Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.

Savoy Books publishes Horror Panegyric, Keith Seward’s analysis of the notorious Lord Horror novels.

Here’s a new campaign from fashion label Dsquared2, featuring sex with crash-test mannequins. But it doesn’t appear to be selling anything. What exactly *is* it selling? Note the photographer: none other than our old mucker, Steven Meisel.

What’s more Ballardian? A fragrance for women patterned after the smell of burnt rubber, brake fluid and excrement? Or a scent designed to evoke the smell of a woman’s vagina? You decide.

Chris N-B asks: ‘What is Michael Jackson’s favorite literary science fiction? I’ll bet you dinner at Picasso that right now he’s curled up in the overstuffed armchair of his penthouse suite at the Bellagio, giggling at The Atrocity Exhibition.’

How strange is this: Rosanna Arquette, and Crash, popping up in all sorts of places. This film, Ballard’s story, still packs a powerful psychological enema.

Steve O. sent me a link to a photo shoot for America’s Next Top Model, on the subject of dead girls. It’s from March earlier this year, and even though seven months in the Ballardosphere is a very very long time, it still needs to be recorded. Steve writes, ‘I don’t know if this has [...]

John Carter Wood sent me this link to vintage German crash-test photos. These shots evoke the footage in the Crash! short film, where Ballard notes, ‘I remember seeing some films on television of test crashes a few years ago. … They filmed them beautifully because they wanted to know what was happening. They weren’t interested [...]

Some people get their kicks from braving a mob of blood-crazed shoppers to attack the nearest mannequin. But if that doesn’t appeal, why not exact virtual revenge? Keith emails to inform of one of the very best things online: a little feature over at ConsumerReports.org called the ‘Crash Test Selector’. It’s a series of films [...]

While I think Jonathan Weiss’s film of Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition was successful in its own right, I still believe there’s potential for a version (maybe not a straight adaptation, perhaps an obliquely angled ‘nod and a wink’; maybe even a sequel) that updates the notion of celebrity culture, that takes up the direction hinted [...]

Something Awful is currently taking the piss out of ‘cyberia’ and the early days of the internet, looking back to a time when hyperlinks were revolutionary because ‘we don’t have to look at text as linear anymore, because it’s all connected now. Information wants to be free. It wants to rape itself and bear its [...]

———————————————————————————— Lyle Hopwood uncovers a lost Ballard work, apparently the only surviving fragment from JGB’s novelization of David Cronenberg’s film of Alien, before the studio infamously got cold feet and replaced Cronenberg with Ridley Scott and Ballard with Alan Dean Foster. ———————————————————————————— It’s only the cat, Ripley. Squatting in the brine strained from the ore [...]