terrarium dresses by Jun Takahashi

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These are absolutely stunning. Full series of photos at Spoon and Tamago:

After 8 minutes of ethereal and lightweight fabrics breezing through the walkway, the lights dimmed on Takahashi’s show and glowing dresses began to slowly float down the runway like deep-sea jellyfish. 

Filled with roses and butterflies, the terrarium dresses illuminated the concrete catwalk, presenting a breathtaking mix of precarious instability and chaos. Once again, Takahashi lived up to he reputation for one of the most darkly enchanting, rebellious, and often bizarre imaginations in today’s world of fashion.

pull list, currently

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… BATMAN (Zdarsky / Jimenez)… WORLDTR33 (Tynion IV / Blanco)… KILL MORE (Wilson / Fuchs)… NIGHTWING (Taylor / Redondo)… TITANS (Taylor / Scott)… BATMAN & ROBIN (Williamson / De Meo)… BIRDS OF PREY (Thompson / Romero)… DAREDEVIL (Ahmed / Kuder)… CAPTAIN AMERICA (JMS / Saiz)… RARE FLAVOURS (V / Andrade)… BLACKOUT BOMBSHELL (Southard / Kotz) … WONDER WOMAN (King / Sampere)… BATMAN: GARGOYLE OF GOTHAM (Grampá / Lopes)…

Zealandia

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via Futurism:

In a new study published in the journal Tectonics, researchers announced that they've finished mapping out most of the two million square miles of Zealandia, Earth's mostly-submerged eighth continent that mainly breaks the surface as the island of New Zealand...

The prevailing theory about how Zealandia came to be submerged, which the GNS Science team affirms, posits that as the former supercontinent of Gondwana stretched out, its tectonic plates began to crack and allow ocean water in. After Antarctica later broke off, the crust of Zealandia continued to thin out until it became submerged -- and lost to the depths.

sitrep/20230930

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Tomorrow's newsletter's written, the first Shard (weekly 100-word microfictions exclusive to subscribers) done. Next: deciding whether or not to continue the "I am the voice in your head" editions of the NL: while it's not a ton of effort, it does impact how long I can work on the writing, so I'm still weighing that one. A lot depends on how my voice is doing in the morning.

MainFictionThing remains at a standstill but I'm chipping away at the brick wall in front of it, a little light peeking through. I think I see what I'm trying to see which is maybe what it wants me to see?

Grandfather on road to recovery, out of hospital and in his (rather swanky) resort/transitional care. Fridge stocked with Ginger Ale, football on the TV. He's set.

The hanger is real: multi-grain cheerios and a shot of bourbon do not an excellent dinner make.

Compiling a list of times I haven't felt a pervasive emptiness in the last 14 years and it's rather paltry and I don't know what to do with that other than state it for the public to myself record.

FANTÔMAS (Louis Feuillade, 1913-14)

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(Directed by Louis Feuillade from a script by Feuillade, Marcel Allain, and Pierre Souvestre; starring René Navarre, Edmond Bréon, George Melechior, and Renée Carl. Released 09 May 1913 -> 1914; watched 2023w36 ->2023w39 via Kino Blu-Ray)

As is the case with all of Feuillade's (600+!) pictures, there's a buoyancy to every shot in this five-film cycle, even though – as per the inchoate cinematic language of the time – the films (FANTÔMAS, JUVE VS. FANTÔMAS, THE MURDEROUS CORPSE, FANTÔMAS VS. FANTÔMAS, THE FALSE MAGISTRATE) are told in long static wides (a notable exception being a fantastic and effective horizontal to vertical shift near the end) and an over-reliance on narrative intertitles: they just MOVE, a breathless propulsion from one unlikely and deliciously pulpy scenario – silent executioner! spiked pajamas! bell-ringing blood! skin gloves! wine bottle snorkels! murder! faked death! fake identities! narrow escapes! explosions! blackmail! (implied) sex! Tom Bob! bodies in steamer trunks! – to the next, rolling, tumbling, until the requisite cliffhanger ending (even in the final film) in which Fantômas – René Navarre's mold-building portrayal being evident in everything from Lang's DR MABUSE, THE GAMBLER (down to the opening transformation from disguise to disguise) to the masked Republic serial villains to the Universal Monsters (though Fantômas is an utter shit, lacking in even a scintilla of the UMs' sympathy-inspiring humanity) through Christopher Lee's Dracula and into Hannibal Lecter (both Hopkins and Mikkelsen) and Ledger's Joker – escapes Juve's clutches, leaving us with the promise that their cat and mouse will be as immortal not only as the pursuers and the pursued, but as the generations of dyads they've so clearly inspired.

These foundational treasures are a reminder of the joy of simply letting loose and having a good time, thrillrides as exciting and watchable now as they were 110 years ago. French Blu of JUDEX, Feuillade's "heroic" 1916 serial (and inspiration for The Shadow) is on its way and I've got a rewatch (first in +/-25 years) of LES VAMPIRES in the offing too, FeuilladeFest in tandem with FritzFest, it would seem...

Tom Bob forever.

sunday newsletter drabbling

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Follow-up to yesterday’s pissnmoan re: newsletter-blog differentiation. This week, I'll be moving the Shards series over to Macro and making it a subscriber-exclusive weekly series of 100-word stories (Drabble powers activate) designed to function for my fictional brain as the Attendance Cards do for my awakening brain each day, a way to force me into quantity over quality and foster an even greater attitude of fictional experimentation. The first one will launch in Sunday's Macro0137. You can sign up here, if so inclined.