THE DOYLE DIARY

Another choice find at Steve's Bigfoot Books was The Doyle Diary, a fascimile reproduction of the 1889 diary/sketchbook of Charles Altamont Doyle, father of Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle was a Victorian English eccentric, institutionalized as insane, who transformed his garden prison (the Sunnyside asylum) into a sometimes macabre, often beautiful imaginary world.

(click on images for more detail)



His watercolors are filled with a visionary strangeness, like a less violent, more artful Henry Darger. Some have even compared him to William Blake in his hermetic mythology, which often depicts huge, threatening birds in surrealist juxtaposition with chaste looking women.



And some of them are just plain weird...



Squirrel Nursing the Lost Babe

WOOD'S LOT

Grace and taste are not aspects often found on the net, but Wood's Lot is an oasis of such qualities.

STARVING WEIRDOS

In the past few months we've been lucky enough locally to see under-the-radar musical assaults by the likes of dadaist crazies Sunburned Hand of the Man, drone avatars The No Neck Blues Band and most recently, Jackie O Motherfucker, all in the comfort of the living room of stately Samoa manor, headquarters of local noise heroes Starving Weirdos. It's nice (and rare in these parts) to see such imaginative and challenging music in homey, friendly surroundings and the bands seem to appreciate it too.

Well, those very same Weirdos have a brand new interview in the food issue of Viceland, snarky hipster online tentacle of Vice magazine.

Well done, Weirdos!