|
|
| |
|
 |
| 1986 |
"New Noire Stars of the 90s" - Bat and Norman
goofing off and creating a myth. |
| 1987 |
Bat creates and publishes the first Issue of Sins
of Coffee. |
|
1987-
1996
|
Sins of Coffee comes out approximately once or twice a year.
The beginnings of a creative group starts to form with people
who become involved with Sins of Coffee:
•Bat who is the editor-in-chief and publisher.
•Norman who contributes Antagonistic
Pedestrian cartoons and stories.
•Elizabeth (Melusine) who becomes co-editor
and contributor.
•Kallisti who becomes art editor and contributor.
|
|
|
|
|
What is Sepulchritude?
Sepulchritude,
a creative group, is:
Kallisti,
Mordantia Bat,
Melusine de Nuit,
and
le Marquis Déjà Dû.
Sepulchritude is the name taken by this group of people and also
the name for a particular group of their projects, both collaborative
and individual.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| 1990 |
The four decide to start an art "salon." They
call it a salon with a generous bit of tongue-in-cheek (we recently
even found the notes
from the first meeting), but they were quite serious about forming
some sort of creative alliance for support, inspiration, collaboration,
and general debauchery. |
| 1989 |
The first
forays into making absinthe also begin due to a suggestion
and sudden source of fresh wormwood. |
|
1990-
late
90s
|
Friday night debauches/meetings (the sometimes
so-called "salon") began to be held at Cafe du Nord and continued
on in some form until the late 90s. Although the main focus
of the Friday night meetings was really just to get together,
have a few drinks, socialize, and maybe brainstorm, many projects
were hatched and worked on at that back corner booth throughout
the years. The gatherings were enlivened throughout the years
by many other people visiting, participating, and drinking with
them -- thus, really, many others contributed either directly
or indirectly to our ongoing artistic endeavors. |
June
1993 |
Norman dies. (See
tribute to him written in 1993). |
Mid
1993 |
Melusine, Bat, and Kallisti bemoan the fact no
one writes good letters anymore -- like in the book Dangerous
Liaisons. So, as bemoaning something usually spurs them into
action, they decide to start writing florid letters to each
other. Thus starts the "Dangerous Liaisons Project."
Although this project started as a response to the bemoaning,
it expanded into a long-term involved project and was carried
on for years. The concept was simple: write letters in the style
common to the days when correspondence was both the main form
of communication and a practiced art. They essentially gossiped
about their lives, addressing each other with their adopted
silly titles of nobility. Bars were usually referred to as salons
or soirees. The letters go on for some years with other participants
occasionally joining in. Hundreds of pages were amassed between
all the participants. (Some excerpts of the letters can be seen
in Melusine's "Drinking
With Thine Enemies" column.) |
Fall
1993 |
Bat meets the Marquis. They quickly discover a
mutual interest in Dangerous Liaisons. When Bat describes the
letter-writing project she, Kallisti, and Melusine are currently
embroiled in, he salivates and joins in with their madness.
He proves to be both an enthusiastic participant and instigator
in mutual creative projects with Bat, Melusine, and Kallisti. |
Winter
93-94 |
The Marquis devises the Brainchild
game, which leads to writing of the Brainchild
stories |
|
|
|
 |
|
Fall
1996
|
Kallisti and le Marquis decide to move to New Orleans. Not
long before they move, Cafe du Nord redecorates and wants
to get rid of the actual corner booth and table we used for
so many years. Kallisti appropriates the table and takes it
to New Orleans.
In New Orleans, Kallisti deftly exploits the possibilities
of the new medium of the web, expanding the first infant pages
of Chapel
Perilous (which she had actually started working on in
1995). In New Orleans, she begins work on the Absinthe
pages -- which have since developed into a huge project
and made her, indeed, the reigning Absinthe Kween these days.
|
| 1997 |
Kallisti is very productive during this period.
In addition to feverishly working on her Chapel Perilous pages,
she also insists we begin a new 'zine (to replace and even outdo
Sins of Coffee -- which Bat had put on permanent hiatus in 1996
after making an online archive of it.)
Suffering is Hip launches in 1997. Kallisti takes the name
Sepulchritude, which they all had been loosely using for quite
a while to incorporate various of their projects, and registers
it as a domain. The name solidifies further into significance
for them. |
Summer
1998 |
Neither Kallisti nor le Marquis had managed to
find good and sustainable jobs in all the time they'd been in
New Orleans, and their funds kept dwindling, making life impossible.
So, they reluctantly decide it's time to depart -- the Marquis
moving to Philadelphia and Kallisti moving back to the Bay Area
-- where they know they can find work. Kallisti gives the old
Du Nord table to the Marquis, and he takes it to Philly. |
|
Fall
2000
|
Melusine now decides it's her turn to move to
New Orleans. Le Marquis, feeling done with Philadelphia for
the moment, decides to move back to New Orleans, too, and they
rent a house together. And the table? Yup. It goes back to New
Orleans. (One day, no doubt, we will create a formal document
keeping track of the table's movements. Maybe we should attach
a global positioning system tracker or a webcam to it and offer
the results online. We are both silly enough and geeky enough
to do it. Don't think we wouldn't.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
"Suffering is Hip" and Sepulchritude, both officially starting
in 1996-97, still continue to thrive, each editor periodically
contributing his or her own work as well finding other authors
and artists to showcase. The four: Kallisti, Bat, Melusine,
and le Marquis do form a good working group for collaboration,
cross-collaborations, and sub-collaborations. Although each
does work on other solo creative projects both in and outside
this grouping and as well as collaborating on other projects
outside the Sepulchritude group, they have noticed and are
grateful for the particular effect they seem to have on one
other -- to inspire and conspire on the strangest of endeavors.
They seem to really have stumbled into something viable under
the name "Sepulchritude."
Fortunately, email and the like minimize the inconvenience
of the four collaborators when they are geographically scattered
and unable to sit across the table anymore at weekly Friday
night get-togethers. Occasionally, they descend on each other
for a visit (see the February entries in Melusine's
diary or in the Marquis'
diary for mentions of the Mardi Gras 2001 visit). While
email does not replace piling up empty cocktail glasses at
a shared table, it still facilitates collaboration and the
maintainence of ongoing projects. Maybe things are a little
slower, yeah, but they eventually get done.
And when one needs to take a hiatus or breather (or gets usurped
by the temporal concerns of a job or something), the others
are there to take up the slack and continue on.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
The Marquis and Melusine are in New Orleans. The Marquis is
taking a hiatus and incubating, He'll be back. Melusine is
describing her current escapades in her online
journal.
Bat and Kallisti are in the San Francisco Bay Area (Bat in
San Francisco; Kallisti in the East Bay). Kallisti busies
herself with her job, keeps up the Absinthe pages and forum,
and toils on her newest amusement: making a miniature brothel/apothecary
dollhouse after Hogarth. Bat has several writing projects
in the works, some more consuming than others. Her latest
project is writing a new novel. This one will include some
collaboration from Kallisti. They've never collaborated on
a novel before and are surprised such a thing to do hadn't
occurred to them before. It's all an adventure.
And the table? It's still happy with the Marquis last heard
....
|
|
|
|
|
|
