P.S. Simon, what was this thesis you wrote about? Kisses!

P.S. Simon, what was this thesis you wrote about? Kisses!

I love that this article falls under the site category of Gated Communities.

This ‘happening’ reminds me of the Nuit Blanche festival in France, in which one is entirely free to stroll – like a listless post-situationist with a Three Book (yin-yang coffee table publishing) Deal under his spindly arm – around various mother’s titmilk-warm institutionalized centres of officially sanctioned ©ulture. OK I think I get it – more Ballard, more Ballard – essential for our troubled evolution.. yet despite all this collective nodding “Ah, J.B., yesss.. I was always an admirer of his, you know” a strange bitter after-taste still lingers in the narrative background.. “-Do you smell petrol fumes, professor?”*
*The primal power of The Mighty Ballard to shock n’ awe can never fade

Random Scene (from) “Under The Left Zygomatic Archway, We Kissed” by Jerry Mander II:

[..] Vaughan – a retired specialist in international computerized traffic systems – stalked the ideological margins of The Exhibition in a $3 charity shop suit, passing out glossy leaflets about “Approaching Road Safety In An Unfamiliar Weltgeist” to the younger gathered female academics. A group of them were currently flocking anorexically around a facsimile of James Dean’s car wreck, suspended from the beige ceiling via high tension ceramic-titanium smart cabling. Vaughan slid up to them. “Can I interest any of you beautiful señoritas in a quick conceptual enema regarding commonly misperceived notions of the ‘crash’ phenomenon in relationship to middle class English science fiction?”

Noticing Vaughan’s facial deconstructive surgery, they thought he was a natural part of The Exhibition and simply smiled at him nervously, snapping off pictures of his deadpan face using the latest in personal hypercorporate electronic intertelecoms tech. These were then automatically sent out to various image sharing sites online. Sexless wired Hipsters (’so cool, they can piss long island teas on demand’) then added ironic little meta-annotations to these precious photos, noting their future potential as designer t-shirt icon material.

Ten minutes later, Vaughan was forcibly ejected from the building by a pair of steroid-pumped Exhibition guards for accidentally puking bright road-marking orange bile over the smug wallscreen image of some balding, impotent hack.lit called Martini Amiss, talking shit about ‘fellow literary visionaries’. “Tough crowd” thought Vaughan, as he sped off toward the desert in his black ‘63 Lincoln Continental convertible. The fish hooks welded to the bumper threw off purple-blue sparks as it scraped the low-slung kerb.

Is there a picture of the new Delvaux reproduction anywhere?

Reinforcing your point, the exhibition has only rated one brief mention, as far as I am aware, in the British press (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jul/26/1).

The continent appears to traditionally have been more receptive to Ballard, according to the archival interviews we’ve republished — it’s a consistent theme.

http://www.ballardian.com/sam-scoggins-unlimited-dream-company

What a great job Jordi et al have done!

Like the photos and look forward to seeing more on Flickr!

You’ve even managed to get my fave Ballardian word ‘chittering’ in Rick!

(…It occurs 12 times in Ballard’s work…)