The drawings of Ron Franciere circa 1962-1988 — "Ron Franciere was something of a mystery to me. Ran into many dead ends trying to find information on him. I posted some images on my website Bighappyfunhouse. I received emails that held a few stories of Ron and his life - but nothing ever lead me to contacting Ron Franciere. Then, I received an anonymous comment on my website."
posted by unliteral
on Aug 21, 2012 -
7 comments
A summer day, a dirt road, heat thick as steam from a boiling pot. Along the shoulder are verdant trees, shadows, the hum and croak and whistle and buzz of the woods. This is Clarksville, Texas, 1910. And here is Frank Jones, who will one day, decades from now, years after his death, be among the most recognized African-American self-taught artists.
[more inside]
posted by zamboni
on Sep 19, 2011 -
4 comments
Len Cella is a former housepainter from Broomall, Pennsylvania. He has been making
short,
stupid movies since long before Youtube (or indeed its userbase) was a gleam in anyone's eye. His
dedication to his craft managed to get some of his Moron Movies on the Carson show.
Moron Movies (1985) and
More Moron Movies (1986) appeared on VHS, and have been popping up in discount bins ever since. Amazingly, they are not currently in print. You've heard of outsider music -- now enjoy a
little outsider comedy.
[more inside]
posted by Countess Elena
on Apr 4, 2010 -
20 comments
With black velvet paintings of
George W. Bush,
Dick Cheney,
Karl Rove,
Donald Rumsfeld,
Jack Abramoff,
Phil Spector,
Jon Benet Ramsey,
Jesus and a Big Rig,
Erik Estrada,
Charles Nelson Reilly,
Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher, and everyone's favorite physicist,
Stephen Hawking, velvet paintings aren't just of
Elvis,
Unicorns, and
Aztec Indians anymore.
posted by premiumpolar
on Aug 12, 2008 -
38 comments
Hitotoki.org (Japanese for 'a point in time') is a "new literary site collecting stories of personal, singular experiences in Tokyo." If you've visited Tokyo, please consider sharing a part of your Tokyo experience at hitotoki.org. If you plan to
visit Japan, please peruse what will be an interesting collection of personal stories of life in
Tokyo.
posted by gen
on May 7, 2007 -
23 comments
Ramsey Kearney was a teenage country music prodigy
nicknamed the Dixie Farmboy, a rockabilly singer with
the Jimmie Martin Combo, a
songwriter for Brenda Lee, and a producer of the most cloying
Elvis tribute single ever recorded. Kearney would have almost no connection to alternative music whatsoever until John Trubee,
a notorious crank phone caller and sideman for
Zoogz Rift, found an ad in the back of the
Midnight Globe tabloid from Kearney's
Nashco Records label, a
song-poem company offering to
put his words to music for a small fee. Trubee sent his own
disturbing LSD-fueled lyrics to Nashco, but to his surprise, Nashco accepted the lyrics after taking a $79.95 fee from Trubee. Kearney tweaked the lyrics slightly in order to avoid a
lawsuit from Stevie Wonder, but the end product was the cult classic novelty song,
Blind Man's Penis. (more inside)
posted by jonp72
on Aug 3, 2006 -
12 comments
Whether you love it or hate it,
Ulillillia City is a fascinating site by
fascinating person. It's a meticulously annotated, categorized and laid out record of one man's entire mental life: his colour coded
daily life, his
dreams (over 400!), his
fears, his video game ideas (including
the supernatural olympics), his unique personalized
mind game, his extensive
tips 'n' tricks,
how he processes and listens to music, and far more...
posted by The Wig
on Jul 30, 2006 -
42 comments
Rummage Through The Crevices (Musical Curiosities, Obscurities and other Unearthed Treasures) is "a weekly community radio segment (Friday mornings, 2SER-FM, Sydney, Australia) devoted to offbeat and outsider music, less travelled paths of global pop, interesting re-issued treasures, music-sharing activists, notable and unusual online mp3 repositories, etc. This webloggy thing is its online companion."
posted by taz
on May 30, 2005 -
5 comments
Harry Stephen Keeler has been called one of the strangest writers who ever lived. He has also been called the Ed Wood of Mystery Writers. His plots are labyrinthine, convoluted, insane, built on coincidences. There's a
Harry Stephen Keeler Society. His works are now
being re-printed. And, if you're feeling brave, you can
read many of his works on-line.
Keeler created, and was seemingly the sole practitioner of, a genre he called the "webwork novel." This is a story in which diverse characters and events are connected by a strings of wholly implausible coincidences
posted by vacapinta
on Aug 18, 2002 -
20 comments
Outsider Music. From a mailing list, here's a concise
description of what is really more an
idea than a genre, per se. The
Hip Surgery Music Guide has some info on
the essential artrists of the phenomenon. If you wanted to stretch the definitions of the form you could include,
some better-known artists as well.
Unspoiled genius in the rough or merely crude freakshow appeal? The answer I believe is somewhere is somewhere in between. But in an age where most music is either a copy of what is currently popular or a revival of what used to be popular, Outsider Music is a place to go for a "Wow! What was that?" musical experience.
posted by jonmc
on Jul 1, 2002 -
11 comments
The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as
the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, as caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. The story recounts the wars between nations on an enormous and unnamed planet, of which Earth is a moon. The conflict is provoked by the Glandelinians, who practice child enslavement. After hundreds of ferocious battles, the good Christian nation of Abbiennia forces the 'haughty' Glandelinians to give up their barbarous ways. The heroines of Darger's history are the seven Vivian sisters, Abbiennian princesses. They are aided in their struggles by a panoply of heroes, who are sometimes the author's alter-egos. The battles are full of vivid incident: charging armies, ominous captures, alarms and explosions, the appearances of demons and dragons.
Details within.
posted by y2karl
on Jan 25, 2002 -
19 comments
