The Museum of Modern Art in New York is honouring Director Tim Burton with a retrospective exhibit of the artwork connected to some of his most beloved films including Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas. The exhibition will include hundreds of never-before-seen paintings, sculptures and puppets from the artist’s own collection. Celebs including Johnny Depp, Patti Smith, Danny DeVito, Tim Burton and partner Helena Bonham Carter attended the exhibition premier in New York this week (see footage). The exhibition will run from 22 November 2009 until 26 April 2010 and has been described by MONA as an exhibition of Burton’s work “as a director, producer, writer, and concept artist for live-action and animated films, along with his work as a fiction writer, photographer and illustrator.” (more…)

The Boy with Nails in his Eyes
put up his aluminium tree.
It looked pretty strange
because he couldn’t really see.

Tim Burton’s: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy is one of my most favourite books: it is sufficiently warped to appease my twisted sense of humour, it combines poetry with fairytale, the social comment is poignant, the art is beautifully quirky, the emotion is intense and Burton’s imagination is as transcendent as always. I love an artist who is prepared to take a risk. (more…)

Hail to guardian.co.uk for making a duller than dull Thursday totally awesome. On this afternoon’s front page is a teaser trailer for Tim Burton’s Alice interpretation, which is due for release on 5 March 2010. The recently released promotional stills for the film are magnificent and this trailer just makes the anticipation all the more unbearable! Unseen characters revealed in the trailer include the Cheshire Cat (voiced by Stephen Fry), the Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee) and exciting new cast revelation: Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts. The comments provoked by the teaser have already divided the troops in true Burton fashion: it’s the cult of Burtonesque, members of which thrive on the director’s outrageous imaginings and eccentricity **Yay** versus the cult of WTF?, whose members have been sent into a royal panic over the impending corruption of a modern classic as well as Burton’s ‘lack of originality’ in interpreting an already existing piece of literature **Boo**. The cult of we don’t care will merely be stampeded in the impending war of cinematic opinion **shame**. Burton is a master of satire and social commentary, and is thus more than aptly suited to the task of Alice. Lewis Carroll’s story has become a modern fairytale, and the great thing about fairytales is that they are reinvented as each generation passes. The lessons taught and the observations made are adapted to suit the context of the time in which the story is told, the historical context forming the foundation of all interpretations and adaptations. In his Alice mythology, Lewis Carroll challenged the unimaginative stoicism of nineteenth century England, an attitude that stagnated and thus permeated subsequent generations. If Burton is able to continue Carroll’s legacy by confronting a culture of rigidly inescapable tradition, then the director has succeeded.

“What you seek is nowhere; but turn yourself away, and the object of your love will be no more. That which you behold is but the shadow of a reflected form and has no substance of its own. With you it comes, with you it gostays, and it will go with you” (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.433)

The beautiful Narcissus was divinely punished for his exceptionally cruel despisal of those who fell in love with him. He was thus caused, by the gods, to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool. Unable to obtain the object of his love and not being able to break away from the beauty of his own reflection, Narcissus pined away alongside the pool and, succumbing to his sorrow, finally perished. (more…)

La Belle Dame Sans Merci – 1926, Frank Cadogan Cowper (1877-1958)

Cowper’s exquisite painting is a visual representation of John Keats’ poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci or The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy. There are two versions of Keats’ ballad. The first version is from the original manuscript and the second version is the form the poem took when first published. The first version, which is generally considered the best, was altered upon publication in 1920. Keats’ ballad is inspired by an early fifteenth-century French poem by Alain Chartier of the same title: La Belle Dame Sans Merci, which belongs to the tradition of Courtly Love. Courtly Love is a noble and chivalrous expression of love and admiration. Typically, it was a secret affair between members of the nobility and was generally not practiced between husband and wife. Literature that forms part of the Courtly Love convention usually describes a man pining after a woman, who ignores his wooing until he has sufficiently proven his love and adoration for her. Only then will she succumb. The chivalrous and noble man is thus rendered a tragic figure as he faces the virtuous rejection of the woman he so loves. (more…)

Torey Hayden is one of my favourite authors to read. Her books are absolutely heart-wrenching but beautifully inspiring. Hayden, an educational psychologist, writes accounts of her real-life experiences of teaching and counselling children with special needs. Her speciality is selective mutism but she has dealt with many conditions including autism, Tourette syndrome, sexual abuse and foetal alcohol syndrome. Hayden is passionate and dedicated, and through her writing she reminds us of how precious life is: so fragile and yet so resilient. The beauty of the human spirit is uncovered through her intense encounters with the afterbirth of the dark and destructive side of human nature. The reality of what many children endure is all too real but with the help of people who genuinely care; these children can overcome their tragic realities. But not always. (more…)

The mind of a serial killer is a fascinating thing. And the mind of Dexter Morgan is like a delicious trifle that I feel compelled, by the rumblings of a hungry gut, to dig in to, dissect and explore in the hope of finding hidden treasures. Jeff Lindsay’s character has spawned a cult following of readers and viewers. The TV adaptation of Lindsay’s series stars the brilliant Michael C Hall as the killer we love to love. With Harry’s code under his belt and the convenient cover of good-humoured blood-spatter specialist for the Miami PD, Dexter grows into his role as the Dark Defender, as he efficiently and methodically scours the scum from Miami’s streets. (more…)

In between mouthfuls of the most amazing shrimp burritos and swigs of wine, last night’s dinner party conversation developed into a discussion about the Camden pin-cushion, who sits at Camden Lock making himself a prime target for happy-snappy tourists who, without fail, succumb to the oddity of this human anomaly. Mr Anomaly demands … sorry suggests a donation for his image to be immortalised on camera. I guess it’s a version of entrepreneurship. From piercings and tattoos the conversation naturally progressed to body modification, scarification, limb amputation and that crazy German cannibal called Armin Meiwes. Meiwes published a classified ad on the internet that read as follows: “looking for a well-built 18 to 30-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed”. Yes, someone did respond. His name was Bernd Jürgen Brandes. (more…)

Andrew Gumbel’s article The truth about Columbine discusses Columbine, a book written by Colorado-based journalist Dave Cullen, which reveals the truth of the Columbine massacre as attested by “tens of thousands of official documents and other evidence that has at last seen the light of day after years of suppression by the local authorities”. Gumbel reports that much of what the public (including the students at Columbine High) understand to be the truth of what happened that day, and the reasons for why it happened, is based on reports by the media. And the media was “simply wrong”. Gumbel tells how Cullen’s book reveals that “Harris and Klebold had plenty of friends, did pretty well in school, were not members of the Trenchcoat Mafia, did not listen to Manson, were not bullied, harboured no specific grudges against any one group, and did not “snap” because of some last-straw traumatic event. All those stories were the product of hysteria, ignorance and flailing guesswork in the first few hours and days”. (more…)

Chuck Palahniuk is detested by his critics and adored by his fans. The author’s writing dictates no half measures – it’s love OR hate. And of course, there is always the third party which just doesn’t get it. Okay and a fourth party that appreciate from a distance but don’t get involved. Palahniuk is the Marilyn Manson of literature. He has been labelled a “shock writer” – similar to Manson’s “shock rocker” title. I despise the use of the term shock in this context. Both novelist and singer certainly pack a punch but the reductive properties of the term overwhelm its impact: a) The group of people that these artists appeal to are shocked by very little b) How about about looking past the ’shock’ value to consider what the point of the so-called ’shock’ tactic is – what are these artists trying to say? Attaching prefix/adjective shock to the name of an artist applies the principle of ’shock for shock’s sake’ to the artist’s creation, and this is in turn suggestive of the laziness and ignorance of the word’s user. It is a word usually coined by the we don’t get it group – the group that, as a general rule, avoids the Why? question. (more…)