Story of the Eye

In 1928, Georges Bataille published this first novel under a pseudonym, a legendary shocker that uncovers the dark side of the erotic by means of forbidden obsessive fantasies of excess and sexual extremes. A classic of pornographic literature, Story of the Eye finds the parallels in Sade and Nietzsche and in the investigations of contemporary psychology; it also forecasts Bataille's own theories of ecstasy, death and transgression which he developed in later work.
"Unashamedly surrealistic, both disgusting and fascinating, and packed with seemingly endless violations" (Amazon). (more...)

David Lynch: Snowmen

Exhibiting his characteristic preoccupation with ominous beauty as these ephemeral folk sculptures decompose in front of snow-covered tract houses, Lynch pays scant regard to the cheerier and more genial properties of snowmen, and indeed some of these images will remind viewers of the shadowy black-and-white tones of Lynch's 1977 film Eraserhead. (more...)

Ripple: A Predilection for Tina

Introduction by David Cronenberg.
"Artist Martin DeSerres, 38, was getting by on children's book illustration when a grant he had applied for finally came through, enabling a project he called 'The Eroticism of Homeliness.' Finding models was at first difficult, but Tina, a teenager, eventually kept her appointment with him. Chubby, bespectacled, pimpled, she seemed overweeningly shy. But she warmed to posing, especially in the nude. And Martin fell for her. Sex ensued, and it was the experienced, even jaded man who felt, perhaps, in love. For Tina, everything was much more casual. She enjoyed pleasing Martin and fulfilling his fantasies, but when he tried to fulfill hers, such as she had told him, she recoiled and eventually left" (Booklist). (more...)