The Crone and the Hyena

Last night we watched The Flowering of the Crone: Leonora Carrington, Another Reality. It was weird and good! Interesting blend of archival interview footage, history, and adaptation of one of her stories. It feels older than it is, with some graphical effects that seemed oddly 1990s for a 2009 production. The only complaint I have is that the version we watched (on Kanopy, a streaming platform specializing in art, world, documentary , etc. film) didn’t offer closed captioning, which I almost always use these days. 4/5 girl-faced hyenas.

If you want to know more about Carrington, a multi-faceted artist, there are plenty of image galleries and articles floating around online. Selena Chambers has also just finished a series of read-throughs of Carrington’s short fiction over at Weird Fiction Review, which is worth a gander. My exposure to the female Surrealists has included a swathe of Leonor Fini’s work, with a side order of Tanning, but both the documentary and Selena’s read-though have inspired me (finally) to take in some more Carrington.

Shirley Jackson, Dark Visionary, Revealer of Human Frailty, Empress of All, For Whose New Book We Give Thanks

If you haven’t heard, today is the release day for the new (!) book from Shirley Jackson, writer extraordinaire, best known for… well, if you’re reading this, surely I don’t have to tell you. I have not yet acquired Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings, but I will. Ordinarily these sort of books are full of juvenilia, crappy also-rans, or whatever bits & bobs the literary executors have been able to scare up.  Online excerpts of this book, however, suggest it’s going to be fucking sweet. So, hey, if you somehow hadn’t heard, check it out. [Amazon|B&N|Indiebound]