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Below is a guest post in which our good friend Stephen Coates of The Real Tuesday Weld tells the fascinating story of what he terms "X-Ray Audio," aka Soviet-era bootleg records made from second hand X-Ray plates and containing forbidden western music such as jazz and rock and roll; See images above for a few examples. On Friday, May 8th, Coates and Aleks Kolkowski will teach us more about the subject in an image, film and sound filled presentation at The Morbid Anatomy Museum entitled The X-Ray Audio Project: The Incredible story of Bootleg Technology, Cold War Culture and Human Endeavour , sponsored by Art in the Age spirits . You can find out more  here . You can also find more about Coates' project--and see more images and hear audio!--on his X-Ray Audio project website by clicking here . X-RAY AUDIO They are images of pain and damage inscribed with the ghostly sounds of forbidden pleasure. They are fragile pictures of the inside of Soviet citizens overlayed with th...

A few days ago, Resident Film Programmer and Arcane Media Specialist Joel Schlemowitz screened the 1931 film Svengali at The Morbid Anatomy Museum. Although the film had many charms, it left me yearning for the novel on which it was based, George du Maurier's Trilby , an instant sensation upon its publication as a serial in 1894. A wonderful (if flawed) book and hugely popular in its time, it is little read today, probably because of the overtly antisemitic character of Svengali, the infernal Jewish mesmerist and musical virtuoso who drives much of the stories action. Despite this, there is much to recommend this strange and idiosyncratic book; although meandering and uneven, it is worth reading if only for the sequences which try to suggest the unimaginable and otherworldly beauty of "la Svengali's" voice. Also of note is the role played by the Paris Morgue, which acts as a kind of running theme and portent throughout the book, looming over the painters in their st...

Below, film maker in residence Ronni Thomas--director of The M idnight Archive --introduces his newest film for our new Morbid Anatomy Museum Presents series , on Victorian hair art jewelry, with Karen Bachmann , teacher of our popular class on the same topic . You can view the film above or by clicking here ; Stay tuned for more episodes which will premiere monthly on our new You Tube channel, which can be found here ! Victorian Hair work was one of those things I just didn't 'get' at first... But I looked into it anyway. Karen Bachmann is a friend, colleague and fellow NYC born reformed (to some degree) street punk, and happens to be the authority on the subject, combining academic knowledge with charm and flair... It wasn't until I screened the film for my sister in law that I finally 'got it'. She has no specific interest in the morbid or the tragically designed, but she reacted pretty impressively to this film... Forgive me for this but: it's hair, A...

Happy Easter, everyone! And to celebrate this anniversary of Jesus Christ's post-death resurrection: Piero della Francesca's wonderful mural "Resurrection," completed in the 1460s. Image and credit sourced here .