A rare conversation with Cryptic Corporation’s Homer Flynn. He is the official spokesperson for The Residents.  Homer & Christina discuss The Residents’ new novel, The Brickeaters and the power of anonymous art.

Credits:
Recording and Engineering by Dan Niedziejko/Indian Not the Arrow Studio
Song “Feral Theme” by SleeperSound (written by Kenny Buesing)

Podcast questions / suggestions:
press@feralhouse.com

A lively conversation between Feral House’s Christina and Danko Jones about his upcoming book, I’ve Got Something To Say. In it, they discuss favorite and influential bands, nerd-culture, and give some handy tips on deciphering Canadian and Midwestern semantics. (Once again, Inga the dog provides additional commentary.)

Danko mentions some of the bands he’s listening to recently. Here’s a list, with links:
Here Lies Man: https://hereliesman.bandcamp.com
Lüt: http://www.lutband.com
Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell:
https://riseaboverecords.com/artists/riseaboveartists/admiralsircloudesleyshovell/
Giuda: https://giuda.bandcamp.com/album/lets-do-it-again
The Biters: https://www.bitersband.com

*Additional commentary by Inga.
Credits:
Recording and Engineering by Dan Niedziejko/Indian Not the Arrow Studio
Song “Feral Theme” by SleeperSound (written by Kenny Buesing)

Podcast questions / suggestions:
press@feralhouse.com

Episode Three of the Feral House Podcast. Guest: Jason Louv, author of the new book, John Dee and the Empire of Angels. Jason edited the Thee Psychick Bible and copy edited other Feral titles. Jason and Christina have a lively conversation about the dominance of Protestant culture starting with John Dee. You can learn more about Jason’s work and the new book here: https://jasonlouv.com/book/john-dee-empire-angels/

*Special guest appearance by Inga.

Credits:
Recording and Engineering by Dan Niedziejko/Indian Not the Arrow Studio
Song “Feral Theme” by SleeperSound (written by Kenny Buesing)

Podcast questions / suggestions:
press@feralhouse.com

The New York Times:

Mel Gordon, an unorthodox and widely published drama scholar who taught a course in the history of bad acting and wrote books about the ghastly Grand Guignol theater of Paris and the deviant sexual world of Weimar Berlin, died on March 22 in Richmond, Calif. He was 71.

Sheila Gordon, his former wife, said the cause was complications of renal failure. His only immediate survivor was his brother Norman.

Professor Gordon, who taught at New York University and then the University of California, Berkeley, indulged a medley of singular enthusiasms.

He wrote a two-volume history of the Stanislavsky method of acting — and the libretto to a Yiddish opera. He collaborated on a study of Funnyman, a Jewish shtick-wielding comic book superhero who was conjured up in 1948 by the creators of Superman — and wrote a biography of Hitler’s so-called Jewish clairvoyant. He wrote about commedia dell’arte — and about Madonna’s interest in kabbalah, the mystical Jewish tradition of interpreting the Bible… (continue)

San Francisco Chronicle:

Mel Gordon, a drama scholar who penned unconventional and eclectic writings on theater history, died March 22 in Richmond. He was 71.

The cause of death was complications related to renal failure, said Gordon’s former wife Sheila Gordon.

Gordon is perhaps best known for “The Grand Guignol,” about the graphic genre of theater in 20th century Paris, and “Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin,” on sex culture and prostitution during the Weimar Republic. He also directed more than 20 productions in Frankfurt, New York City, Paris, Zurich and San Francisco… (continue)

If you were lucky enough to spend time with Mel Gordon, you were treated to the man’s generous and infectious love of theater history, cabaret, and the dark corners of Twentieth Century culture.  At heart, Mel was a teacher and we are comforted that we played a role in sharing his expertise. Beginning with the 1988 edition of Grand Guignol, Theatre of Fear and Theater, his encyclopedic history of the Grand Guignol of Paris that the New York Times noted was, “Bloodcurdling shrieks, fiendish schemes, deeds of darkness, mayhem and mutilation – we all have a rough idea of what Grand Guignol stands for. But until now it has been hard to find out much more about it than that. According to the American theater historian Mel Gordon, no major history of the theater so much as mentions it, although it is a form of entertainment that held its own on the Paris stage for more than half a century.”

Mel was a gregarious soul who loved pushing boundaries with his writing and performances.  He shared this memory with Heathen Harvest Magazine in this 2016 interview, “The original publishing house [Feral House precursor, Amok Press] was so poor that they couldn’t afford to give me a book party when The Grand Guignol was released. I felt sorry for them, so I told them I’d do a Grand Guignol play, we’d charge five bucks, and that would pay for the book party. We performed A Crime in the Madhouse, where the eyeball gets scooped out and the face gets burnt away. It was the only time in forty-five productions or more that I’d done where the audience got up on their chairs afterwards and demanded to see it again.”

Mel’s learned explorations took him from New York University to a long-tenured position teaching theater history at Berkeley.  He was a catalyst in San Francisco’s performance culture, staging both popular productions of Grand Guignol plays and his thoroughly modern and transgressive “Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Museum of Sex”, (which was shut down after a performance art piece where a dominatrix penetrated her boyfriend with a bottle of Wild Turkey to illustrate the treatment of native Americans by western expansionists in the 1800s).  Mel Gordon took impish glee in sharing his research and exposing the hypocrisy of modern sexual politics and taboos.

More than anything, Mel was a friend.  Adam shares these thoughts:

Mel Gordon’s passing is a heartbreaker for Feral House and me personally.

I first met Mel when I worked as a typesetter and layout artist for PAJ Publications in 1979. At that time Mel taught at NYU and spoke to me then of his fascinating research labors.  Creating Amok Press (with Ken Swezey) in the late 1980s allowed me to publish Mel Gordon, and the first book he did together was The Grand Guignol: Theater of Fear and Terror.  Expanded editions of this book have been published since then by Da Capo and Feral House.

Mel’s extensive knowledge of theater coincided with that of my own family, whose New York days in the 1950s hooked them up with the famed German director Erwin Piscator, who created “epic theater” in the 1920s with Bertolt Brecht, and later directed plays and taught at the New School of Social Research where my mother Rosa also taught and directed, and my father took courses following his days as a prisoner during World War II.

For the past couple decades Mel taught a multitude of courses at UC Berkeley and also labored on a number of book projects, some published by Feral House. In his late days Mel was writing a book called “Fascist Love Cults” which he may not have completed. Mel Gordon had a wide range of unorthodox interests, and he demonstrated them well in his many publications, including Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin, Horizontal Collaboration: The Erotic World of Paris 1920 – 1946, Siegel and Shuster’s Funnyman: The First Jewish Superman from the Creators of Superman, The Seven Addictions and Five Careers of Anita Berber: Weimer Berlin’s Priestess of Depravity, and Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler’s Jewish Clairvoyant.

We will continue to have fond memories of Mel Gordon, and will miss his friendship for as long as I live.

We encourage you to learn more about Mel and his work in these interviews Mel did with Tenebrous Kate at Heathen Harvest Magazine in 2016.

• https://heathenharvest.org/2016/03/24/in-search-of-the-extraordinary-an-interview-with-mel-gordon/
• https://heathenharvest.org/2016/09/20/theatre-of-fear-and-horror-the-grisly-spectacle-of-the-grand-guignol-of-paris-review-interview/
• New York Times review of Grand Guignol, Theatre of Fear and Terror (Amok, 1988)
• https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/11/books/books-of-the-times-how-the-grand-guignol-made-fear-popular.html
• San Francisco Chronicle review of “Magnus Hirschfield’s Museum of Sex” (August 2, 1997)
• https://www.sfgate.com/performance/article/Sex-Museum-Beats-A-Path-to-the-Erotic-2831440.php

Episode 2 of the Feral House Podcast. Guest: Elana Freeland, author of Under an Ionized Sky, from Chemtrails to Space Fence Lockdown and Chemtrails, HAARP, and the “Full Spectrum Dominance” of Planet Earth. Christina and Elana discuss geoengineering, weather modification, and so-called chemtrails in this primer on this fascinating exploration. Skeptical? Have a listen.

Credits:
Recording and Engineering by Dan Niedziejko/Indian Not the Arrow Studio
Song “Feral Theme” by SleeperSound (written by Kenny Buesing)

Podcast questions / suggestions:
press@feralhouse.com

In this premiere episode of the Feral House podcast, Christina Ward asks Adam Parfrey about beginning in publishing and early Feral House titles. They also discuss upcoming Spring 2018 titles and Adam shares his thoughts about Jonas Akerlund’s Lords of Chaos movie.

Credits:
Recording and Engineering by Dan Niedziejko/Indian Not the Arrow Studio
Song “Feral Theme” by SleeperSound (written by Kenny Buesing)

Podcast questions / suggestions:
press@feralhouse.com

Feral Friday has Returned!

And with it, announcing the arrival from the printer of the new Feral House book just back from the printer: Revival: Resurrecting the Process Church of the Final Judgment by William Sims Bainbridge.

Those who know anything about the Process Church should be aware that Bainbridge is also the author of Satan’s Power, the mainstay of information about the Process Church prior to the appearance of Love Sex Fear Death by Timothy Wyllie from Feral House. Over the past few decades Bainbridge has worked for at Cyber-Human Systems at National Science Foundation, and he holds a positive view of the notorious cult.

The pages of Revival reveal whether the Processeans achieve the hopes expressed in their blessing: “May the life-giving water of the Lord Christ and the purifying fire of the Lord Satan bring the presence of love and unity into this assembly.” Will the Process Church successfully reconnect with people today? It fascinates me that the Process Church has been accused on being the most insidious murder cult of modern times, and several true crime books promotes this idea.

http://feralhouse.com/revival/

Another book that recently arrived at our front door from the printer is the coloring book based on the life of the musical master, Prince. It’s a lovely thing, and worth the effort of choosing colors for its mix of images.

http://feralhouse.com/prince/

It’s become a trite American joke to shout “I’ll see you in court!” at any perceived offense. Yet sometimes, it happens. In 2011 our sister press, Process Media, published the successful The Urban Homestead-Self-Sufficient Living in the City.  We were sued by a family business claiming trademarked ownership of this very commonly used phrase. The Electronic Frontier Foundation saw the folly of the suit and took up our defense. After six long years, we are happy to announce that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has upheld our claim that ‘Urban Homestead’ and ‘Urban Homesteading’ are generic terms.

Occasionally a book comes back from the printer, and though you know it well, you’re surprised by the greatness of the result… You knew it would be good, but not this wicked good.

The book in question here is Al Ridenour’s image heavy historical survey, The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas: Roots and Rebirth of the Folkloric Devil. It’s designed by the great Sean Tejaratchi, and printed on heavy paper stock with excellent result. You can see its video trailer here: https://vimeo.com/178244669 … and you can purchase it over hereabouts: http://feralhouse.com/the-krampus/

What is this European weirdness? What are all the costumes about? You might want to check this book before all those creepy parades hit your town.

Another book, just back from the printer, that’s getting quite a bit of attention is from an unexpected source for Feral House, and that is Harley Flanagan, and his kick-ass memoir, Hard-Core: Life of My Own, with an Introduction by Feral House author Steven Blush. As a kid Harley made the scene with Joe Strummer, Allen Ginsberg, Lemmy Kilmister, Debbie Harry, and even Andy Warhol. How did the Hardcore scene start? Where did the Lower East Side go? Harley is the best first-hand voice on the subject. Don’t miss him this coming week, in Brooklyn on Tuesday, October 4, from 7 to 9 pm, at Powerhouse on 28 Adams Street. You’ll be able to hear Harley and get him to sign your copy at this event.

By the way, our dead rock star coloring book volumes are now available, both the amazing Bowie compilation, and the Lemmy Kilmister / Motörhead book, where you can “Color the Ace of Spades”. The Lemmy book is only available from Feral House for the next few months. See here: http://feralhouse.com/lemmy-kilmister-of-motorhead-color-the-ace-of-spades/

Feral House and Process Media titles have come in from the printers, and many people praise their excellence!

We’re talking about Mike (Ugly Things) Stax’s extraordinary Swim Through the Darkness about the rise and heart-rending downfall of the extraordinary songwriter Craig Smith / Maitreya Kali….

I’m so happy to have signed up this book, though I had no foreknowledge of the protagonist…. It’s the life’s work of Mike Stax, and just the other day the brother of Craig Smith contacted Mike S., so new revelations should be soon forthcoming. Don’t miss the book launch party at Hollywood Blvd.’s Egyptian Theater on Sunday Sep 25 at 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm that includes a screening of the never-seen television pilot “The Happeners” that starred the elusive Craig Smith. Many great guests will also appear there. Don’t miss it! https://www.facebook.com/events/173366759760586/

Also, rare tracks by Craig Smith / Maitreya Kali can now be accessed here: http://feralhouse.com/swim-through-the-darkness/

You can also see the video trailer for that book on that page…

The long-expected memoir of Harley Flanagan is just now reaching Amazon and bookstores… People who have received their copies are praising the book to the heavens. Harley will be appearing at a book party at Handsome Dick Manitoba’s bar at 99 Avenue B in the East Village, Manhattan, on September 27 from 7-9 pm!

BTW, it was great to see many Feral House fans at the recent Esoteric Book Conference, and those who met Christina Ward at the Brooklyn Book festival. Do any friends out there have a suggestion for our appearance at any other book festivals? Let us know at info@feralhouse.com …

Beast wishes,