Random weird stuff

I came across a site, The End of Being, a while back that specialises in finding eclectic, obscure and 'difficult' material and presenting it almost like a museum of strangeness.

Then I got immersed in other things and didn't check it for a while. But here are some recent weirdnesses that are food for thought, for different reasons:

- Aleister Crowley (yes, the occultist) reciting a poem 'The Pentagram' - originally recorded circa 1910 on a wax cylinder.

- a discussion of a French novel from 1665, which was republished in translation 1901: “La Vie des Dames Galantes” (The Lives Of The Gallant Ladies). The gallant ladies apparently were subjected to, and enjoyed, a range of corporal punishments.

- some inspirational stuff from painter and video artist Almagul Menlibayeva, born in Kazakhstan and now resident in Berlin, blurring cultural boundaries in her video works that are described as a kind of cross-cultural 'punk shamanism'.

So now you know what I've been entertaining myself with these last few days.