As I found myself in Connecticut this weekend, I stopped off at the Hill-Stead Museum to visit the exhibit Radical Spirits: Tarot, Automatism, and Feminist Histories put together by the collective Hilma’s Ghost (named of course for Hilma af Klint): Hilma’s Ghost, named after af Klint, is a feminist artist collective consisting of Brooklyn-based artists and…
Tag: occult art
Visiting Leornora’s House
Catching up on my viewing as it seems to be one of the few things my exhausted brains can comprehend. Art — especially art by my trimulierate Carrington, Varo & Fini — is sustaining me when I am running on fumes and finally admitting to that fact. I am doing better about not taking on…
Got Gothic? Turney’s The Other One (1952)
The Dell paper back edition: ‘Black magic — and a modern sorceress!’ That ghastly green: I love it. Last week’s film Back from the Dead was based on this mid-century Gothic thriller and scripted by the author, who certainly streamlined the narrative — perhaps a little too much. By coincidence (or due to us both…
Saturday Matinee: Back from the Dead (1957)
BACK FROM THE DEAD (1957) You know I can’t help but wonder whether Hitchcock saw this before he made Vertigo the next year, but of course I am too lazy at present to do any research on either film. In any case, if he did yer man also decided ‘But why don’t we focus on…
TAROT IN GRESHAM’S NIGHTMARE ALLEY
[N.B. Written when I first heard that GDT was remaking it] When I showed Nightmare Alley to the students in my noir film course, one came up at the end to complain that the tarot readings were way off. I agreed and encouraged him to pick up Gresham’s novel. I assured him that the author cared a…
51%: Witches
No, I’m not claiming 51% of the population is witches — would that it were! — rather I am one of the folks interviewed on the timely edition of this venerable radio program 51%. Host Jesse King interviewed me along with Pam Grossman (readers of this blog will be well familiar with the host of…
#WHM: Tove, Frida & Alice
Women’s History Month is fast evaporating and there are several things I ought to get to but haven’t. Time being short and my memory even shorter, here are some films I didn’t immediately write up and can’t access again to double check impressions so I will be vague but enthusiastic. TOVE (2020) Director: Zaida BergrothWriter:…
Virtual Opening: Silent Fire
Tonight at 7pm EDT Nasty Women Connecticut and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music present the virtual opening for the exhibit SILENT FIRE. You can sign up for the event here. You can follow NWC, YISM and the Silent Fire Project on Instagram. Curatorial Statement I burn in a silent flame. … And while for…
Magical Fiction Forum: Study Qs
Some study questions for my talk at the Magical Fiction Forum on Leonora Carrington’s The Oval Lady.
Review: The Witch of Kings Cross
THE WITCH OF KINGS CROSS Writer/Director: Sonia Bible The story of Rosaleen Norton is not very well known outside Australia, even among the pagan world. I was lucky that a friend who was a huge fan introduced me to her art in the 90s. Powerful stuff, it is, too. With occult, spiritualist, and surreal art…
K. A. Laity 