Month: January 2011

Excerpt taken from the unpublished manuscript, ‘Materials for the Study and Classification of Variants in the Animal Kingdom with Especial Regard for those Falling Outside the Boundaries of Natural Selection’, compiled by Roger Holbien.

Pestral

There is scant information available concerning the origin of the Pestral.  We do know that it is a creature which must consume or wear human flesh in order to survive.  Wearing human flesh acts as a balm to their hunger, for a time at least.  The more rotten the meat the more intoxicating it is for them.  Eventually they will consume the meat when the smell begins to alert other animals to their presence.

The Pestral is a delicate and furtive creature with nocturnal habits.  They are scavengers and live mainly in and around graveyards.  A burial will occasionally bring out an almost silent swarm of Pestrals.  They’re smart enough to remain undetected by most humans, lying in wait until the body is left on its own.  Using their powerful claws and jaws they can burrow down to the deceased and are generally careful enough to cover their tracks.   They will steal and fight with each other over the rights to the flesh.

One eyewitness account was discovered in 1892 in the archives of Father Gregory Dunn.  It was penned in 1874 by an unknown source. Along with its signature, the letter’s bottom half had at some point been torn off and presumably destroyed.

“I begin to doubt my own sanity while writing these words, but I cannot continue without relating the events of three nights prior to some other living soul.  We buried old Patrick Warton in the Highgate cemetery where, you may be aware, I’ve recently been employed as night watch.  I believed I heard a queer sound and, going to check, I came upon a creature, no larger than a small mongrel, it had long sharp claws and a powerful jaw.  It had dug a hole through the earth and into Mr. Warton’s coffin.  It was emerging from this tunnel when I came upon it.  It shrunk in fear as soon as it saw me, while I , in turn, was rooted to the spot.  In the little monster’s hands was a long piece of meat, still covered in skin, which it had adroitly removed from the deceased’s body.  The beast regained its wits, or instinct for self preservation, before I and it threw its bloody quarry over its shoulders like a shawl before escaping into the darkness.  I write to you Father because I fear I may need God’s assistance in this matter.  Please help.  I  believe I’ve steeled my nerves for another encounter and have resolved to keep…”

The letter ends here.  I can find no record of any night watchman employed by Highgate cemetery in 1874.

One of my ‘Imaginary Creatures’ is getting a little closer to completion.  It’s a “pestral”, a creature which must either consume human flesh, or wear it in order to survive.

Here are a few pictures:

I sculpted the bones in Super Sculpey, then baked them.  Next I formed the base out of an oil clay and pushed the Sculpey into it.  My next step is to make a mold, then cast it.  I’ll most likely make the cast out of Aqua resin, then paint it a uniform color.

Cheers!

I want to thank everyone who braved the cold on a Wednesday night to come to the premier of Impotent at Anthology Film Archives. (There are absolutely no refunds, so please stop calling me).  We’re planning on  setting up another screening in the near future.  I’ll post all the information on this site as soon as I possibly can.

I thought I’d list a few goals for this year that have been swimming around in the old brain box lately.

I’m hoping to get another movie into production soon.  It’s entitled ‘Zero’ and it follows the fortunes of four roommates, all artists, all talented, but none of them able to support themselves by their art.

It sounds dismal from that description, but, for me, the best comedies start in that dismal, squalid place. For ex. any of Charlie Chaplin’s little tramp movies, Bruce Robinson’s  ‘Withnail and I’, or Lindsay Anderson’s ‘If…”, all of which have been big influences on me.

In addition to the movie I have plans for more sculptures.  I’ve been trying to figure out a way to take the ideas found in the piece ‘A Two God Universe’ and turn it into a series.

Last week I hit on the notion of 1 – writing a history, or mythology, of the gods, how they came to be and how they created the universe, 2  –  Writing a history of the religion they spawned, the human aspect of the story, 3 – creating images that were constructed in their name, such as statues, drawings of temples, etc.,  4 –  how the religion died out, or was stamped out by both external and internal forces.

In addition to this I have two more sculpture series I really want to work on this year; ‘Fossilized Remains of Imaginary Creatures’, I’m still working on writing biographies for the creatures, and ‘Two Figures Pulling Apart’, this series will probably contain nine or ten more sculptures, you can read more about it in an earlier post.

I’m really going to have to focus my energies this year if I’m going to get any of this underway.  It’s only January, so I’m still hopefull that I’ll complete a portion of these projects.

Ok, that’s all for now kids.  Talk soon.

‘Impotent’, a movie I wrote and directed (and shot and edited), is going to be shown at Anthology Film Archives January 5th at 8:15 PM. Anthology is located at 32 2nd Ave New York, NY 10003.  Below are a flyer and a press release.  It took about three years to make.  Unfortunately, everyone involved has day jobs, so we were only able to shoot here and there on weekends.  It stars Josh Dooley, Philipp Wolter, Lauren Seikaly, Cotton Wright, and Candice Holdorf.  I’s almost guaranteed  to be a good time.  Lock up the children and come out to Anthology next week.