FoolishPeople

like a diamond in the sky

Chris Joseph — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:55:05 +0100

DVDP on Tumblr

Kind of makes me want to put on some nice music and stare a while.

'Ziggurat of Dead Shibboleths'

John Harrigan — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:21:33 +0100

A simply stunning track from taken from the upcoming 'Ziggurat of Dead Shibboleths' CD by Choronzon.

Love is a gun

Lucy Harrigan — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:06:06 +0100

Shove it up the crack of the Multiverse, demand what you want.

On sale today...

A rambling goodbye of sorts

John Harrigan — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:17:26 +0100

Joseph Matheny is moving on from Greylodge.

Wow, has it been a long and winding road. Hard to believe it’s been 6 years already since I was asked by Dr. Grey to join in his efforts to make Greylodge a cutting edge source for “unobtainium” on the Internet. Since that time, we have achieved a lot and hosted a lot of traffic and downloads. I dare say we even helped to pioneer the concept of providing curated hard to find art as a public service. We’ve always been non-profit, even when companies who shall remain nameless read about us in the Wall Street Journal and came inquiring as to our openness to “acquisition”. No, really, true story. Yes, we laughed too, much to the consternation of our intended suitors.

Joseph and Greylodge stepped in to sponsor Dead Language when we really needed the support. Good luck to Joseph in his new projects and we hope Dr Grey recovers quickly from his recent accident.

Cirxus by John Harrigan (book trailer)

John Harrigan — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 21:46:34 +0100

1957- Seascale, the North of England. Cirxus; an old English circus lost in the shadows of the smoke stacks of Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station. Step into the world of Cirxus, explore its sideshows and meet extraordinary characters from the past and future.  

Athalia the ballerina waits in the ring for Loudon the clown to return with directions to the Black Pool, the mythic site of the Home Sweet Home, the final show of the season.

Join her as she begins a bizarre and wondrous search for Loudon through the irradiated secrets of Cirxus, where she must face the macabre atomic menagerie, haunted by circus animals and navigate her way through the maze of strange, hallucinogenic sideshows to the other side of time.

Immerse yourself in the world of Cirxus, where theatric arcana and atomic fallout irradiate the sawdust arenas of our inner worlds.

Cirxus is the first script of an immersive theatrical event to be published in the world and the first work to be published from FoolishPeople's back catalogue. Each copy includes concept art by P. Emerson Williams, alongside a photographic record from the first run of Cirxus at the Arcola theatre in 2009.

Cirxus defies genre and form and offers a literary experience like no other. A combination of hallucinogenic novel and blueprint to a physical experience.

Available now from
weaponized.net
johnharrigan.com

Trailer directed by P. Emerson Williams
Footage filmed by Richard Webb

The Lowbrow Tarot Project

Chris Joseph — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 17:31:52 +0100

The Fool - Carrie Ann Baade

Incoming

John Harrigan — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:24:10 +0100

FoolishPeople are busy preparing upcoming projects, one of which will be our largest undertaking to date. This project has required a huge period of research and planning, as Vittoria mentioned below things will be quiet until we're ready to unveil what we have for you (although if you note the colour of the clouds and the flight patterns of certain bird species you'll see the signs early.)

Since 'A Red Threatening Sky' closed in February, FP has successfully launched the Weaponized Imprint. We've now published Forum by Richard Webb, Cirxus and Dead Language in the UK and US. All Weaponized books are available to order from all major UK and US retailers.

The Kindle Edition of Dead Language is now available in the US and UK Amazon Kindle stores and the Weaponized eBook edition of Dead Language is available from today for the iPhone, iPad and other PDF readers. I'm proud to say all Weaponized eBooks are DRM free.

Weaponized publishes The Sparky Show by Xanadu Xero and P. Emerson Williams on Monday the 6th of September. In the coming months we'll be publishing Citizen-Y by James Curcio and myself and Harmony Hill by Brian Shaughnessy.

The Weaponized Imprint is now open for submissions from those of you that have a head full of luminescent fiction which needs siphoning off.

Have a good Autumn.

Distant Rumblings

Vittoria Russo — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 22:18:00 +0100

I've had word from head office.

The doves have flown the coup, but the nestlings remain to feed and grow.

The combined forces of FP and Weaponized are working steadily on the next phase of this year's assault. I've been reliably informed that there will be a stream of incredibly exciting news in the coming months, but for now you'll have to remain patient. Secrets will be unveiled in due course.

In the meantime, I and FP.com's other spectacular contributors will do our best to bring you assorted secret handshakes, arts and wonderment.

iamamiwhoami

Vittoria Russo — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:10:24 +0100

I couldn't tell you how I stumbled across this project, doubtless through one of the many winding wormholes I seem to fall down between the hours of daylight.

iamamiwhoami is an electronic music project, featuring Jonna Lee as lead singer and a collection of unknown producers. Their videos are something of a pure joy to watch.

One could make all sorts of the usual female, alt-singer comparisons here - but I'm going to resist given that this is the first new project that has had such a positive impact on me for months.

Enjoy

New releases for Weaponized

Lucy Harrigan — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:36:10 +0100

Standard hardback editions are now available of Cirxus & Dead Language by John Harrigan and Forum by Richard Webb.

Books can be purchased at the Weaponized Store and across other major retailers including Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles, WHSmith and independent bookstores.

You can see previews of the featured art by P.Emerson Williams and photography by Yiannis Katsaris and follow updates of Cirxus and Forum on our facebook pages.

Adriani's New Gallery

Lucy Harrigan — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 01:12:56 +0100

The Boy Who Chose Sleep by Tom G Adriani

Talented artist Tom G Adriani has a new website housing many of his illustrations, animations and paintings including original works he created for FoolishPeople's production A Red Threatening Sky earlier this year.

With works available to buy, FP thoroughly recommends a journey into his site to explore the tales that creep "unannounced" into his imagination.

http://www.wix.com/tgadriani/Art

The Temptation of Tony by Tom G Adriani

Weaponized - Follow on Tumblr

John Harrigan — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:39:26 +0100

brianshaughnessy:

If you’re not following the good people at weaponized already you should be. Fantastic books, music, and art:

Follow FoolishPeople's Weaponized Imprint on Tumblr.

Weaponized Episode 7: Control

John Harrigan — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 01:55:33 +0100

Everything is under control, locked in, calcified, terrorformed. We’re from the Corporation. We’re here to help you. Sonic terrain and music provided by Choronzon.

Featuring extracts from FoolishPeople's performance of Weaponized Art: 4.0 Cicatrix at Space Engineering's Independence exhibition alongside accompanment from musical genius Georgi Georgiev on Sitar.

========================================

Weaponized is brought to you by FoolishPeople. John Harrigan is writer, dramatic catalyst and performer alongside Lucy Harrigan and the rest of the FoolishPeople cast. Atmosphere, electronic voice phenomena and the occasional character sketch are provided by P. Emerson Williams. The scope of the Weaponized ranges from darkly humorous vignettes to claustrophobic occult horror. From abstract soundscapes to monologues to full on audio.

Download or listen now.

Weaponized launches today

Lucy Harrigan — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:54:16 +0100

Cover image by Simon Houghton & layout by P.Emerson Williams

The Weaponized Store opens today with the launch of the deluxe editions of Dead Language and Cirxus by John Harrigan and Forum by Richard Webb. They're available now to pre-order at our store: www.weaponized.net

Each title includes its own special features photographs from the theatrical run including backstage documentation and extras such as T-shirts, original scores and limited edition original artwork.

An array of Dead Language art slogan t-shirts and downloads of the original scores to FoolishPeople productions by P. Emerson Williams are also available to purchase.

The Weaponized imprint extends the immersive art of FoolishPeople into the realm of publishing. Our mission is to seek out and disseminate experimental forms of fiction, prose and art that offer new ways to experience stories and myth. We are passionately committed to finding unique narrative hybrids that challenge, engage, inform and inspire our readers.

In coming weeks and months, we'll be launching further titles including The Sparky Show by Xanadu Xero and Harmony Hill by Brian Shaughnessy along with the standard editions and ebooks of our launch titles. You can follow updates by signing up for our newsletter here.

We'll be posting a full list of Weaponized stockists very soon.

Photography by Xanadu Xero

Choronzon - Vox Inferni (2010)

P. Emerson Williams — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 23:06:30 +0100

The return of the great beast Choronzon is imminent. Lest you know the proper evocation you will certainly never make it to the Ziggurat Of Dead Shibboleths. 40,000 Ephraimites have preceded you. 40,000 Ephraimites have died. Participate in the Mass Ov Choronzon, cast your ego into the infinitude to request Inferni... you most certainly deserve it!

Or simply download "Vox Inferni" H:M:S 04:47:45 ov dark, harsh, industrial, drone, in one EP large enough for the beast himself. The soundscape ov hell. In preparation of the first Choronzon CD since 2005's Panic Pandemic. Download "Vox Inferni" (Inner-X-Musick Catalog Number XXX-PROMO-2010.2).

Track Listing;

1		Maanelys Skygge
2		Vox
3		Inferni

Get it HERE

Looking Glass

Vittoria Russo — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:43:01 +0100

Occasionally in life you'll stumble across a being who puts everything in perspective. A looking glass in perfect focus.

If you're particularly blessed, it'll happen every few years. For those of you with fortune similar to mine (verging on obsolete) you might just be able wish on it hard enough to manifest it.

For me, these beings appear when they're most needed; when I'm at my lowest ebb. Just about to give up control of my life, sit back and become the oxygen-stealing, sack of wasted potential I'm expected to be by what commonly passes as society. I'm trying to be careful here, not to sound too much like a foolish girl with a misguided crush for my soul has grown gnarled and hardy in recent years so as not to allow such things to happen. So, for the sake of a little clarity; your looking glass wont always appear in a form you'd be happy to fuck. Though, for the cost of a little extra gnostic(j)ism, they just might.

I detest the use of the word 'Familiar' in this context. Such a lackluster title to give something that's showing you your path, your way through the mire to who you could be, to essentially an Eden of you're own making. Familiar. 'Oh, yes, I thought your face was familiar' or 'That smell is familiar, I must of stood in some shite' are perfectly acceptable uses of the word 'Familiar'. 'I would never have created my own little paradise on earth without my familiar' isn't.

Looking glasses inspire. Not through preaching, but by creeping under your flesh and opening you up so fully you're flushed through with their lucidity and purity. An elysian soul-douche, if you will.

Sometimes they're temporary. Most of mine have been. Trick is, I think, to garner everything they're prepared to gift you, suck it up, miss them when they leave, but always grow.

Initiation

Samm Hain — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:09:04 +0100

These are the days that don’t mean much while you live them, but when they are gone? Well, then you know your salad days. As we eat and laugh, Elise slips her hand into mine and it’s the first sign of affection she has shown that isn’t a prelude to aggressive sexuality. It startles like a lightning strike. Outside the sun goes low casting a hazy golden light. I’m being called by the wilds. Leaning over the clutter of pizza boxes and crushed beer cans, I brush aside her raven dreads and whisper invitations to Elise.

We pass the rock where Cathleen saw the dwarf, its surface cool green, moss covered, and moist looking. We aren’t talking and have no plans; we’re just moving, and drinking in the solitude. I can tell she wants to say how beautiful it is and that she understands how profane human words would be. I take her up to the throne and we cool out on the stones. Still and quiet; getting swallowed up by that golden summer light. Soon the roses and violets of twilight will blossom.

The hour grows late and the bats come out. Still, neither of us makes a move to leave or utters a word. Hours pass like days under the dancing stars of the Milky Way, and in the span of those few wordless hours we grow old and die together. “Have you ever wished the sky would swallow you up, just fill you....consume you”? She asks. “Have you ever asked it to?” I reply. She gives me a weird look. “I’m being dead serious Elise.” “I guess not really” she says, her voice on the verge of laughter. “Well, you never know until you try.”

Elise looks up at a sky which has grown dark as her bed sheets. “Eat me!” She yells, and then collapses, sorrowful. I lift her head to the night sky with one hand under her chin and press my lips to her ears, ”Now try it like this.” I start to squeeze her throat. “Trust me Elise”, and with those words the tension begins to fade. “Look into that darkness and call to it with all your passion and all your pain.” Her words are like stream of consciousness poetry, like prayer. I keep squeezing tighter and tighter urging her to let go with whispers barely audible to some but loud as thunder for those with ears to hear such things.

She slumps back into my arms. I release her throat and hold her as the woods grow darker than I can ever recall. The night opens up like the maw of some great beast and swallows her whole. Her eyes are open now, but seeing things I cannot. Up above the trees, above the fight of bats, I make out the silhouettes of angels even darker than the sky. The moon appears casting a baleful eye. Time is frozen like a river in winter. She sheds tears the way the virgin Mary bleeds.

The angels are gone now, and Elise is back. I kiss words into her ears, “I only helped you open the door, whatever was behind it was only for you.” “What was that?” she asks as she turns to face me. “Magic” I answer.

With hard rock at my back she pushes me into earth, and I reach up and touch sky; round, soft, and dark.

Michael and the Heygate Estate - One Picture a Month Project - Yiannis Katsaris.

John Harrigan — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:38:26 +0100

Michael is one of the last residents still living at the Heygate Estate. The estate was completed in 1974 and is located in the London Borough of Southwark, south of Elephant and Castle. It has 1100 homes and a reputation for crime, poverty and deprivation. It's been ten years since the council first announced that the Heygate estate was to be demolished as part of a regeneration/gentrification scheme. The plan is to build a major new town centre for south London, containing new commercial and leisure facilities, an updated transport interchange and 5,300 new homes. The demolition of the Heygate Estate is an essential part of this plan and re-housing Heygate residents into quality new homes in the local area is now a priority. With most of the last few tenants already evicted from their homes, the majority of the last remaining residents – 35 households - on the Heygate estate are leaseholders. Michael and his family however own their house. He refuses to move out because he claims the council is undervaluing the price of his house. He says the amount the council deems it's worth, is not enough for a similar 3-bedroom apartment in central London. His family will either have to relocate far from the centre or apply for a mortgage to be able to afford a new house in the same area.

One Picture Per Month project from FP photographer Yiannis Katsaris. One Picture Per Month explained One picture per month is a monthly mini newsletter by photographer Yiannis Katsaris. The newsletter will feature one of Yiannis’ recent pictures or one from his archive. This communication platform aims to be a gift in your inbox rather than a traditional newsletter.

http://www.yianniskatsaris.com

I Am A Bullet Called Kairos, My Mother Was A Gun

Samm Hain — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:25:16 +0100

Z put the barrel to his head and pulled the trigger. The shot cut through the silent promise of a perfect day. I took my eyes off Jennifer just long enough to look out over the field of rioting weeds. There was no way I could have seen it but somehow, I did; dead eyes and wordless apologies reflected in his blood.

What came next was a week that tasted like salt; Friends trying not to drown each other. I don't remember the funeral at all. I'm sure it was all very somber. A pile of earth and a metal box. People expressing love too late. A cemetery that looked like a city park so you didn't have to look death in the face.

Later that day the family, our family, gathered at his favorite spot. We built a pyre for his soul in the depth our woods. We tossed beers into the fire, I think someone threw a joint. Sarah held me so long at the edge of the flames I though we'd burn too. Z was never a man of somber ceremony. I'm pretty sure they had to go buy the suit they buried him in. I took a deep drink and tossed the last bottle in. One for the road brother. A litany of broken glass and the hiss of beer on hot stone, these were prayers of our final rites. And we were angry, but not at him, or at least not only at him. We were angry at a world that kept taking and taking, no matter how far we ran from it, no matter how skillfully we hid from it.

Z's little brother reached into the military drab duffel and pulled out our standard. We passed the spiked bat brother to sister, sister to brother; I still remember how it felt in my hands for the last time before his brother tossed it on the pyre. Paint fumes and glowing nails. "I'm my own man." How many times had I heard that? How many times had I said it? That idea like the day itself disappeared forever beneath the pink and orange waves of the setting sun. Each of us was pieces of the other; broken children making each other whole. This is fact not philosophy, and that is why without knowing reasons we burned the one thing in the world that was the most all of us.

Still, the world does not end in Winter, and that day was the coming of our Spring. Some people are born to sew seeds, it gets to where they don't even know they're doing it. That was Z to a fucking T. Sarah put her hand in mine."Brian, I love you." "I love you too Sarah." We all grew together that day, crawling up and over old walls like ivy. Children of the vine ready to blossom. You would have been proud Z, I'm sorry you missed the birth.

Weaponized Art 4.0 - Cicatrix @ INdependence

John Harrigan — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:47:27 +0100

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